Predictive Discovery Ltd (ASX:PDI, OTC:PDIYF) continued to focus on advancing its Bankan Project, a Tier-1 gold project in Guinea, West Africa, in the half year to December 31, 2023.
In its half-year report, Predictive advised that it ended the period well-funded with cash and term deposits of $25,508,230 million, and provided an overview of its activities for the half-year.
Mineral resource upgrade
The highlight was the increase of the Bankan Project’s mineral resource in August 2023 to 100.5 million tonnes at 1.66 g/t gold for 5.38 million contained ounces of gold — a 29% increase in contained gold compared to the previous 4.18-million-ounce resource.
Increases were achieved across all of the NEB Open Pit, NEB Underground and BC Open Pit mineral resources, and importantly a total of 4.14 million ounces was upgraded to the higher confidence indicated category.
Due to the significance of the mineral resource increase and upgrade, combined with the advanced level of work being completed, the company announced in October 2023 that the Bankan Project study had been upgraded from a scoping study to a PFS (including maiden ore reserves), which will materially improve the level of certainty of the project.
To achieve PFS-level across the entire study, additional work is required in areas such as geotechnical, mine design and cost estimation, and the completion date was therefore revised to Q1 2024 (previously end of 2023 for the scoping study).
The PFS and the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) continued to progress and remain on track to be completed during Q1 2024.
Following completion of the updated mineral resource estimate, Predictive increased its focus on exploring and drilling multiple Argo and near-resource targets.
Argo targets
At Argo, which is 15-20 kilometres north of NEB, Predictive aims to discover additional commercial gold deposits that potentially host additional major gold discoveries.
Multiple targets were identified through geochemical auger drilling and geophysics. During the half-year, the company completed an initial 49-hole reverse circulation (RC) drilling program and commenced a follow-up RC and aircore (AC) drilling program, which is ongoing.
Encouraging results were received at a number of Argo targets during the half-year, including:
- Fouwagbe -12 metres at 6.75 g/t gold, 4 metres at 12.14 g/t, 4 metres at 4.81 g/t and 6 metres at 1.56 g/t at a 600-metre long multi-element auger anomaly coincident with artisanal workings;
- Sinkoumba - 4 metres at 6.87 g/t and 2 metres at 10.90 g/t in the same corridor as Fouwagbe;
- Sounsoun - two parallel northwest dipping structures intersected at the north-eastern end of a 1.8-kilometre-long auger anomaly, with best results of 5 metres at 5.16 g/t and 9-metres at 1.04 g/t;
- Naladioulou-Gbata - 9 metres at 4.42 g/t at an auger anomaly and 1 metre at 30.40 g/t on trend 700 metres to the southwest near artisanal workings; and
- Tindini - Best result of 14 metres at 1.97 g/t.
Near-resource drilling aims to discover additional deposits which can support an operation centred around the NEB and BC deposits.
The drilling program is progressively testing numerous areas in the vicinity of the NEB and BC deposits and following up the most promising targets with additional drilling.
800W, SB and SEB targets
During the half year, best results were received from the 800W, SB and SEB targets, which show potential to become future satellite deposits.
Best results from these targets included:
- 800W - 16 metres at 1.74 g/t, 11 metres at 2.42 g/t, 9.5 metres at 2.73 g/t, 9 metres at 2.72 g/t and 11 metres at 1.91 g/t;
- SB - 3 metres at 13.40 g/t, 9 metres at 3.30 g/t, 10 metres at 1.84 g/t and 6.75 metres at 1.96 g/t; and
- SEB - 3 metres at 27.66 g/t, 2 metres at 3.96 g/t, 1 metre at 12.80 g/t, 2 metres at 3.84 g/t, 4 metres at 2.47 g/t and 3 metres at 4.68 g/t.
Predictive also mentioned that encouraging results were received at other near-resource targets, including NEB North, NEB South and BC East.