AMN - MALI: Oklo resumes drilling at Dandoko

Oklo Resources has resumed drilling after the wet season at the Seko prospect of Dandoko Gold Project in western Mali with a 10,000-metre program scheduled. This will precede a maiden mineral resource estimate scheduled for completion in Q2 2020.

The company’s board has approved the drilling program comprising aircore, reverse circulation (RC) and diamond core drilling.

An aircore rig arrived on-site at Dandoko last week and started drilling on Monday with the initial phase expected to be completed in four weeks.

The program will focus on infill drilling as well as closing off areas of near-surface mineralisation at Seko anomalies and surrounding areas to support the resource estimation.

After the initial phase and subject to availability, an RC and DD drilling program will follow immediately thereafter.

In parallel with the drilling, the company is dispatching samples to ALS Metallurgy in Perth, Australia, for metallurgical test work on representative oxide, transition and fresh ore types.

The planned test program was delayed due to damage to a previously drilled PQ diamond hole drilled rendering it unsuitable for test work. As a result, a second PQ diamond metallurgical hole was drilled at SK2 immediately prior to the wet season targeting a near-surface zone of mineralisation to provide sufficient volumes of material available for test work.

The core was kept in storage over the wet season. Following the restart of drilling activities and reactivation of the field camp, the core was cut and samples dispatched for analysis.

The assay results confirmed excellent grade continuity within the oxide and transition zones returning 50 metres at 3.99 g/t gold from surface to the end of hole.

Within this interval, the following high-grade zones were intersected - 12 metres at 7.19 g/t from 38 metres, which included 4 metres at 11.53 g/t from 40 metres.

Oklo's managing director Simon Taylor said: “The company is pleased to have field crews back working at Dandoko with drilling underway following the recent wet season.

“The board has approved budgets and drilling programs for the 2019-2020 field season with the aim of delivering a mineral resource estimate in conjunction with further metallurgical test work.

“We anticipate receiving first assays in early to mid-November with work fully funded from our cash position of around $9.5 million."

Upon completion of the resource drilling program at Seko, the company’s focus will return to exploratory drilling along the Dandoko Gold Corridor.

This will include diamond drilling at SK2 testing for high-grade shoot development at depth and drilling in the southern Selingouma area.

The company was also recently granted ownership of the majority of its Kandiole Project in Mali by the relevant government authorities.

The 100sqkm permit adds to Oklo’s portfolio in the region, which is near a number of large-scale operating gold mines. It is within 10kms of B2Gold’s operating 7.1-million-ounce Fekola Mine and IAMGold’s 2.6-million-ounce Boto Gold Project.

Desktop studies by Oklo have identified numerous targets within the Kandiole project which will be evaluated by low-cost auger geochemical drilling in the upcoming field season.

Similar reconnaissance auger bedrock geochemistry was instrumental in the identification of the significant bedrock gold discoveries at the nearby Dandoko and Kouroufing projects.

The acquisition of the project was agreed on May 2018 and part of the agreement will see Oklo issue 791,557 shares to the project’s vendor.

http://www.okloresources.com/