Altus Strategies (ALS ) said drilling has confirmed the discovery of a significant new parallel zone of gold mineralisation from its joint venture at the Tabakorole gold project in Mali.
Altus holds a 49% interest and 2.5% Net Smelter Return ("NSR") royalty on the project. Exploration activities are being funded by Marvel Gold Limited under its JV with Altus.
The current drilling programme is designed to test the potential to expand the Tabakorole deposit in Southern Mali on which a Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") has been modelled.
Marvel had recently completed 3,240m of DD designed to expand the current MRE in the Northwest Zone, define the Parallel Zone and as previously reported, infill the Central Zone.
The targets in the Northwest Zone follow Reverse Circulation drill results from earlier in the year, which included 2.0 g/t Au over 16m from 75m and 5.8 g/t Au over 6m from 61m.
Previous drilling in the Northwest Zone indicated the presence of a high-grade parallel lode of mineralisation over 120m of strike, which the Group said remains open and at depth.
Shares in Altus Strategies have increased by over 30% in value since the beginning of 2021. The stock was trading 4.58% higher during the late morning at 80p following the news.
The Company said drilling in the current programme has now confirmed the presence of this new zone with results including 2.4 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold over 24m from 35m and in the adjacent section 1.5 g/t of gold over 21m from 26m (up dip from 2.0 g/t Au over 16m).
A total of 4,140m of DD and 5,400m of RC drilling has been undertaken by Marvel in 2021. The results of these programmes will feed into an updated resource statement (in accordance with the JORC code), which is expected to be completed in later this month.
Steven Poulton, CEO of Altus, commented: "The discovery of this parallel, shallow and high-grade gold zone has significant implications for the potential of the Tabakorole gold project in southern Mali. Drilling results of 2.4 g/t Au over 24m from 35m depth in the Parallel Zone and 3.6 g/t Au over 16.5m from 3.2m depth from the Northwest Zone are excellent.”
Poulton said Marvel, Altus’ ASX-listed JV partner, has been “aggressively advancing” Tabakorole through its drilling programmes in 2021 and that the programmes have successfully extended the deposit's strike length to the northwest and southeast and intersected new shallow and high-grade mineralisation outside of the current deposit model.
Altus said Marvel Gold has the right to earn up to an 80% interest in the Tabakorole gold project by sole funding four stages of exploration, culminating in a definitive feasibility study, and by making certain cash (or cash plus Marvel shares) payments to Altus.
Thereafter, Altus has the right to co-finance or dilute its 20% interest in the Project. Altus also retains a 2.5% NSR royalty on the Project. Marvel will have the right to reduce the royalty to 1.0% for a payment to Altus of between $9.99m and $15m (depending on the size of the resource at Tabakorole). Marvel has currently earned a 51% interest in the Project.
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