Endeavour Mining has increased indicated resources at its Fetekro greenfield exploration property in north-central Côte d’Ivoire by 141% to 1.2 million ounces (oz), boosting its confidence that it will achieve its goal of discovering a standalone project. Endeavour began exploration at Fetekro in March 2017. The majority of drilling to-date has focused on the Lafigué target, where a maiden resource was published in October 2018, based on 32,000 meters (m) drilled.
Since then, approximately 35,000 m have been drilled to infill and extend the deposit, which led to the 700,000-oz increase in indicated resources while increasing the average grade by 13% to 2.54 grams/metric tons gold.
The Fetekro deposit extends over an area 2.2 km long by 0.6 kilometers (km) wide and remains open at depth and to the southeast and south. It is amenable to open-pit mining. Preliminary metallurgical tests indicate high gold recovery rates of above 95%, with a significant portion recoverable by gravity.
At least 30,000 m of additional drilling is scheduled to begin during the fourth quarter of 2019, with an updated resource slated to be published in the second quarter of 2020. A 20,000-m drilling program over nearby Fetekro targets is planned to begin in early 2020.
Endeavour President and CEO Sébastien de Montessus said, “We are excited at the value we have created through exploration, as we have effectively deployed circa $10 million to generate a resource in excess of 1 million oz of gold at an attractive grade of more than 2.5 g/mt. Fetekro’s resource scale has reached an important milestone as it is now similar in size and grade to that of our Agbaou mine in Côte d’Ivoire when it started production in 2014.”
(www.endeavourmining.com)
