AMN - COTE D’IVOIRE: Abujar gold resources increase 24%

Tietto Minerals has increased its JORC resource estimate by 24% to 2.15 million ounces grading 1.5 g/t gold for its two gold deposits within its Abujar Gold Project in Côte d’Ivoire. The confidence of the resource has been increased with 40% of the deposit now in the Indicated JORC category.

The resource is split between the primary Abujar‐Gludehi (AG) deposit and smaller Abujar Pischon‐Golikro (APG) deposit.

The high‐grade section of the AG resource now stands at over 4,000 ounces per vertical metre, supporting the potential for a high-margin open-pit mining operation.

Tietto’s managing director Dr Caigen Wang said: “We are very pleased to report that our Abujar Gold Project has moved into a select multi‐million-ounce club with gold resources increasing to 2.2Moz at 1.5 g/t gold.

“This excellent result has been underpinned by rapid and effective drilling at AG since the last resource update in April 2019 that delivered wide high-grade intercepts on section after section. 

“These high impact holes (from just 15,000m of extensional drilling and 5,000m of infill) have translated into a resource update at AG that has delivered on many fronts.

“We have increased our shallow high‐grade core to 1.4 million ounces at a higher grade of 2.2 g/t gold over a continuous 1.4km zone.  Our drilling has also increased the confidence of the resource estimate at AG.

“We now have just under half of the AG resource classified as indicated resources for 860,000 ounces  at  1.8  g/t including 9.6 million tonnes at 2.5 g/t for 760,000 ounces from surface with these resources at the northern half of AG.”

He said the company’s discovery costs were arguably the cheapest in the industry.

“We will be very busy in 2020 as our fleet of four company drill rigs are on track to deliver 50,000 metres or more of drilling by Q3 2020, doubling all drilling at Abujar to date, as we target continuing rapid growth in our gold resource inventory.

“Gold mineralisation  at  AG  and  APG  remains  open  and  we  will  continue  with  our  aggressive  resource definition drilling as well as testing new targets over the 70km strike of the largely untested Abujar gold corridor.”

Tietto has also received commitments from investors to raise $17 million in a share placement priced at 26 cents. Funding will allow the company to accelerate the ongoing drill-out of the rapidly expanding Abujar project.

The capital raising has broadened the share register through the introduction of a number of international and Australian institutional investors, as well as enjoying strong support from existing shareholders.

Caigen Wang said: “2019 has been a year of phenomenal success at the Abujar Gold Project, with the recent upgrade of our resources to 2.2 million ounces, and a large number of high grade and shallow gold intersections being reported over the past few months, suggesting excellent potential for a future high-margin mining operation.

“We are pleased to welcome our new shareholders to the register and expect to deliver a strong pipeline of exploration updates as a result of this successful capital raising which provides the company with approximately A$20.0 million including current cash.

“Our full focus is on adding high-grade ounces to the resource as rapidly as possible and we have ordered a fourth diamond rig to add to our existing fleet of company-owned rigs.

“Our rigs are proving to be superbly efficient, allowing us to drill at industry-low prices of less than US $35/metre, saving the company an astonishing A$12 million per year assuming annual meterage of over 60,000 metres.”

www.tietto.com