Tietto Minerals Ltd (ASX:TIE) has increased its mineral resource by 146% to 1.73 million ounces at the Abujar Gold Project in central west Cote D’lvoire in West Africa.
To date, the company has defined mineral resources over a small portion of about 6.9 kilometres of a 70-kilometre mineralised corridor across three Abujar project tenements.
Tietto aims to complete more than 20,000 metres of diamond drilling using company-owned rigs in 2019 targeting a further resource upgrade in late 2019.
READ: Tietto Minerals accelerates drilling at Cote D’lvoire gold project
Tietto managing director Caigen Wang said the company was delighted that Abujar gold resources had more than doubled just over a year after Tietto’s IPO.
“Defining a higher-grade zone of mineralisation at 2.1 g/t containing more than 1 million ounces of gold from surface over 1.4 kilometres within the northern half of the AG deposit demonstrates the Abujar Gold Project has potential to become a very high-grade, open-pit gold mine.
“The strong resource growth at AG and APG from limited drilling of 15,000 metres of RC and DD in 2018 demonstrates potential for rapid resource growth.
“Tietto’s aggressive drilling program for 2019 will see us continue with resource definition drilling as well as new target generation over the 700-kilometre strike of the largely untested Abujar gold corridor.”
READ: Tietto Minerals intersects up to 194 g/t in shallow drilling at Abujar Gold Project
The updated JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate for the Abujar Gludehi (AG) and Abujar Pischon-Golikro (APG) deposits includes:
A 114% increase in overall contained resource ounces at AG for 1.38 million ounces within the 24.4 million tonnes, including a high-grade core of 15.7 million tonnes at 2.1 g/t gold for 1.06 million ounces;
An inferred mineral resource at APG totalling 11.2 million tonnes at 1.0 g/t for 350,000 ounces; and
Total JORC 2012 inferred mineral resources of the AG and APG deposits totalling 37.6 million tonnes at 1.4 g/t for 1.73 million ounces.
Additional drilling is scheduled to target 5 kilometres in strike length between the two deposits.