IronRidge gets four-year renewals to licences in Chad

Africa-focussed minerals exploration company IronRidge Resources has been granted four-year licence renewals, with corresponding area reductions, by the Chad Ministry of Petroleum and Mines, it announced on Wednesday.

The AIM-traded firm said the renewals were for the Dorothe, Echbara and Am Ouchar licences, now covering 446.25 square kilometres within an overall 746.25 square kilometre portfolio of “highly prospective” gold tenure, including the drill-ready Dorothe Gold Project, 180 kilometres south east of Abeché in eastern Chad.

It said the portfolio was interpreted to represent an unexplored intrusion-related gold (IRG) system, a potential analogue of the Tintina Gold Belt in Alaska-Yukon, with notable deposits including Donlin Creek, Fork Knox, Pogo and Dublin Gulch.

The Dorothe target covered a three kilometre by one kilometre zone of artisanal workings, with a number of previously-reported trenching highlights.

Over 14,500 metres of trenching results had defined the steep-dipping main vein target over a one kilometre strike, and multiple shallow-dipping sheeted vein targets over a 600 metre strike at the Dorothe target.

Ground-based induced polarisation geophysics confirmed the highest priority geophysical anomaly associated with the main vein zone, a one kilometre long low-resistivity mineralised vein zone with coincident chargeability anomaly dipping steeply to the east.

IronRidge said the renewals also included the Echbara licence, where previous trenching returned highlights of 58 metres at 1.31 grams of gold per tonne and 12 metres at 2.17 grams of gold per tonne over a two kilometre long by 150 metre wide 100 to 300 parts per billion soil anomaly.

They also included the Am Ouchar licence, where historical United Nations Development Programme trenching results included 20 metres at 6.8 grams of gold per tonne, 16 metres at 4.7 grams of gold per tonne and 12 metres at 5.7 grams of gold per tonne, and defined two-to-five metre thick shallow-dipping quartz veins within hematitic schists.

An in-country exploration office would be re-established in N'Djamena, now that Covid-19 travel restrictions had been eased, with planning currently underway to resume field activities in the new year.

“We are very pleased to have successfully renewed the Dorothe, Echbara and Am Ouchar licenses for a further four-year period; securing this important gold portfolio and in particular the drill-ready Dorothe target - the company's most advanced gold project within the Chad portfolio,” said chief executive officer Vincent Mascolo.

“We have worked closely with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mines to secure the license renewals and look forward to resuming field activities.

“The recently renewed licenses and existing granted tenure now cover a combined 746.25 square kilometres of prospective geological terrain with significant previous exploration work completed to date identifying multiple gold targets for immediate follow-up.”

Mascolo said the Dorothe Project represented a “high-priority walk up-and-drill target” with in-excess of 14,500 metres of trenching completed to date, large scale artisanal workings over a three kilometre by one kilometre area, very encouraging trenching intersections, and supporting ground geophysics.

“Now that travel restrictions have eased, we have been able to re-enter Chad and resume activities,the company's N'Djamena exploration office is to be re-established shortly and preparations are now underway to allow the resumption of field activities in the new year.

“Our intention is to focus on drill testing the Dorothe target prior to the onset of the wet season in July 2021.”

At 1204 GMT, shares in IronRidge Resources were up 1.07% at 15.16p.