Viking Ashanti (ASX: VKA) has intersected more multiple zones of gold mineralisation from a further eight drill holes at its Akoase East gold project in Ghana, West Africa.
Results reconfirm potential for significantly extending the existing 500,000 ounce JORC gold resource along strike to the northeast.
Highlights include 8 metres at 2.22 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 5 metres at 1.94 g/t gold, and 18 metres at 1.30 g/t gold.
The results are from three reverse circulation (RC) pre‐collared diamond holes and five RC holes.
The Akoase project is just 25 kilometres from Newmont Mining’s (NYSE: NEM) 8.7 million ounce Akyem gold project.
The drilling program to test along strike to the southwest is now 50% complete. A further 4 strike km of the main Akoase structural trend extending to the southern licence boundary remains to be drill tested.
The onset of the wet season, and extended turnaround times in assay laboratories continues to impact on data flow, however the company expects further releases of assay results from completed drill holes over the next two months.
In addition to Akoase East, Viking Ashanti is aiming to increase resources at its other Ghanaian gold projects including West Star and Blue River to over one million ounces by mid 2012.
The West Star and Blue River projects are 15 kilometres from the two million ounce Salman/Anwia project, operated by Adamus Resources (ASX: ADU).
Ghana also hosts AngloGold Ashanti's 60 million ounce Obuasi deposit (NYSE: AU), GoldFields' 40 million ounce Tarkwa deposit and Newmont's 17 million ounce Ahafo deposit.
At least 13,000 metres of RC drilling is planned along with 2,500 metres of diamond drilling at Akoase with a further 14,000 metres RC and 2,500m diamond drilling at West Star and Blue River through to May 2012.