Diamond Fields to acquire West Africa gold exploration projects
Exploration and mine development company Diamond Fields Resources (TSXV: DFR) says a privately held company it intends to acquire has completed a maiden resource estimate on the Labola gold project in southwestern Burkina Faso.
The resource comprises 5.41 million indicated tonnes grading on average 1.52 gram per tonne gold for 264,000oz, and an inferred estimate of 6.93 million tonnes grading 1.67 gram per tonne for 371,000 oz in place.
The resource estimate is underpinned by 69,787 metres of drilling from 566 drill holes, including the recent Moydow, confirmatory, twin and infill drilling of 4,739 metres for 31 holes.
DFR had signed a definitive agreement to buy Moydow Holdings Limited on August 25, which holds interests in several West African gold exploration projects. Under the leadership of Gerard Kiernan, a former incarnation of the privately held firm Moydow Mines International was associated with the discovery of other sizeable gold deposits in the region, including the Wassa mine, which is still in production today and the Subika gold deposit, which is part of Newmont’s Ohafa mine.
Moydow acquired its interests in the Labola project and the Kalaka project, in Mali, from AIM-listed Panthera Resources in 2020 and 2021, respectively, making Panthera a significant 45% shareholder of Moydow.
Moydow also holds prospects in Nigeria’s Niger state, where its projects lie at the southern end of the Kushaka Schist Belt.
DFR’s future exploration and development programs, following completion of the Moydow transaction, will focus on resource expansion opportunities to produce an updated resource estimate and complete a preliminary economic assessment for Labola.
“The positive results contained in the mineral resource estimate confirm our belief that Labola is a highly prospective project and an exceptional opportunity for future development,” DFR chairman Al Gourley said in a news release.
“Labola is a project with shallow, open-pit resources of which 41% of those currently delineated are in the indicated category. The project has over 30 kilometres of potential strike length along three mineralized zones and many walk-up drill targets which will enable rapid resource expansion.”
According to DFR, artisanal miners have depleted the resource by about 341,000 tonnes grading about 3 grams per tonne. Still, since the location of where the material has been mined from is unknown, the artisanal mining has not been deducted from the new mineral resource.
DFR would acquire, in addition to the maiden resource, an extensive database of historical information, which will allow it to add value directly through the drill bit and support technical studies as it progresses the project’s development.
The Labola gold project is in the Banfora greenstone belt of the West African Birimian Supergroup in southwest Burkina Faso. Labola is about 450 kilometres west-southwest of the capital, Ouagadougou, and 100 kilometres northeast of the Wahgnion gold mine, operated by Endeavour Mining.
Gold mineralization at Labola relates to quartz veining, areas of silica alteration and disseminated pyrite. A previous ground IP survey highlighted the coincidence between mineralized zones and high chargeability (sulphides) and resistivity (quartz veining and silicification) anomalies. This correlation outlines many additional opportunities for resource expansion drilling in the future, the company said.
