AMN - GHANA: Ashanti Gold to exercise Anumso option

Ashanti Gold Corp will exercise an earn-in option for 51% of the Anumso Gold Project in Ghana, as part of an earn-in agreement with the vendor, Goldplat PLC. The latter is conducting a review of Ashanti’s work on the licence as a formal part of the earn-in agreement and both parties are working on a development plan to advance Anumso. 

Ashanti’s CEO Tim McCutcheon said: “We are excited to reach this milestone in Ashanti’s development and we believe Anumso has great potential. We look forward to working with Goldplat to further add value to this project.”

The project is a 29.63sqkm mining lease within two blocks that cover about 13km of strike length of the well-known auriferous Tarkwaian Banket strata within the highly productive Ashanti Belt of Ghana.

This portion of laterally continuous Tarkwaian conglomerate strata has produced gold for over 100 years from the colonial Ntronang Mine 7km to the east of Anumso and from artisanal miners in more recent years.

These same beds are famous in the southern Ashanti Belt for gold produced from the Iduapriem and Teberebie mines of AngloGold Ashanti and the Tarkwa and Damang mines of Goldfields.

Ashanti completed a 2000-metre drill program in early 2017, the results of which were consistent with historical drill results and supported general understanding of the nature of gold mineralisation on the project.

Results from soil geochemical samples collected in 2017 and 2018 significantly broadened the target area for mineralisation and reveal a new anomaly area of around 1500 by 500 metres.

The anomaly pattern suggests that controls on gold mineralisation are both stratigraphic and structural and could reflect a much larger mineralised zone within the Banket stratigraphy than previously understood.

The company received the final report of the metallurgical test work conducted in 2017.

Master composite gold recoveries averaged 94.3%, with a maximum observed recovery of 97.7%. Oxide composite gold recoveries averaged 96.9% with a maximum observed recovery of 98.8%. Variability composite gold recoveries ranged from 96.2% to 99.6%, with an average recovery of 98.0%. Importantly, a single extended gravity recoverable gold test was conducted on the master composite, where gravity gold recovery was 72.9%.

In the foreseeable future, management intends to complete a four-hole drill program on the soil sample anomaly, which is to the north of the historical resource estimate.

In 2019, Ashanti intends to conduct trenching and drilling to demonstrate that gold mineralisation extends beyond the area of the historical resource so that Anumso could have the scale to be a standalone project or a source of feedstock for neighbouring operations.

Goldplat CEO Gerard Kisbey-Green said, “I am delighted that Ashanti has elected to exercise the option over Anumso, validating their confidence in the project.  We have worked well with Ashanti to date and I believe that the partnership has, and will continue to add value to the asset, and more importantly, to our shareholders and to all other stakeholders including the local community.”

www.ashantigoldcorp.com