Avesoro projects' mineralisation increases as drilling results 'compare favourably' to previous models

Avesoro Resources on Thursday revealed the identification of high grade intercepts at its New Liberty Gold Mine following the completion of drilling and partial completion of an assay assessment.

Assay results from the first 29 holes from the 55 hole infill drilling campaign at the project in Liberia "compare favourably" with the mineral resource model, with mineralisation now believed to be either wider, or containing higher grade mineralised zones than previously projected.

Serhan Umurhan, chief executive of Avesoro Resources, said: "The infill programme was designed to increase the confidence level of the continuity of the New Liberty orebody by targeting an area of the mineral resource model containing 275,000 ounces of inferred resources to higher categories of confidence, and in turn potentially increasing the Mineral Reserve at New Liberty."

Specifically, the drilling programme was intended to convert into the indicated mineral resource category, a substantial portion of the 3.5 million tonnes of Inferred material at a grade of 2.8g/t Au contained in the NI 43-101 Technical Report dated November 1, 2017, of which 3.0Mt at a grade of 2.85g/t Au is located below the current designed pit floor

"The results from the first stage of the infill drilling programme at New Liberty have been extremely encouraging and add further momentum to the exploration success we delivered during H2 2017 in Burkina Faso and our 2018 goal of increasing our mineral resource inventory and subsequently increasing the mine lives at our New Liberty, Youga and Balogo mines," said Umurhan.

The Gassore East target in Burkina Faso has seen the completion of drilling, with resource modelling, pit design and optimization studies also nearing completion.

Work at the Zerbogo and Songo permits in the country also continues and at the Ouaré site an indicated mineral resource has been achieved of 5.1Mt grading 1.39g/t Au (containing 228.3koz of gold) and Inferred Mineral Resource of 7.2Mt grading 1.8g/t Au (containing 406koz of gold).

As of 0919 GMT, Avesoro Resources’ shares were up 1.11% at 227.50p.