Apollo Minerals Ltd has provided its December quarterly report, providing an update on exploration and development of the company’s Salanie Gold Project in Gabon, as well as its other core projects including the Kroussou Zinc-Lead Project, also in Gabon, and the Belgrade Copper Project in Serbia.
Salanie Gold Project
Drilling during the quarter at Salanie returned “exceptional” results in an area that has seen no exploration or modern drilling in 70 years.
This presents untapped potential for the company to further develop and points to the potential for an emerging high-grade gold discovery across a 12 kilometres long, highly prospective and underexplored greenstone belt.
The initial diamond drilling program completed at Salanie, targeted three key prospects that feature high-grade historical mining from the 1950s — the A1, A3 and P6 targets — including average mined grades of 16g/t of gold at P6.
During the quarter, Apollo intersected shallow, high-grade gold at the A1 Prospect, returning 11.7 metres at 4.3g/t gold from 9.6 metres, including 5.8 metres at 8.2g/t gold from 15.5 metres.
The gold mineralisation was hosted in fresh rock within a 12 metre zone of quartz veining and shearing starting from 9.6 metres, with visible gold noted locally from 19-19.4 metres.
This mineralisation extends trends identified in trench SATR001, which returned 10.3 metres at 3.4g/t gold and 1.4 metres at 15.7g/t gold. It also indicates potential for a broader mineralised area with anomalous gold up to 0.4g/t gold from surface to start of mineralisation at 9.6 metres.
The A1 mineralised trend is open along strike and dip, forming a priority target for the 2025 drilling program.
Mineralised quartz vein recently uncovered at A1 drill pad
The prospectivity of P6 prospect system was demonstrated with Photon Assay gold results from SLDD002 showing gold anomalism along trend of historical underground workings (5.3 metres at 0.3g/t gold).
Apollo expects drilling, by highly regarded drilling operator Capital Drilling, to commence in the coming weeks with the rig now being mobilised.
The drilling campaign will focus on untested targets at four key prospects (A1, A2, A3 and P6) in addition to extensions to the current A1 gold mineralisation.
In the north of Salanie, around the Mikouma and Binda prospects, infill soil sampling has strengthened existing gold targets in these areas with anomalies up to 200ppb gold.
Follow up ground reconnaissance will assist in delineating further the drill targets.
Salanie soil sampling results and gold occurrences with key Prospects.
The company ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.7 million, plus 2.3 million and 1.0 million ordinary shares in Constellation Resources Ltd and Bindi Metals Ltd respectively, valued at around $550,000.
A non-renounceable pro-rata entitlements offer closed in december raising gross proceeds of around $1.25 million.