Tietto Minerals Ltd (ASX:TIE) recently confirmed encouraging results from metallurgical test work on diamond drill core selected from the Abujar‐Gludehi (AG) gold deposit, part of its 2.2-million-ounce Abujar Gold Project (AGP), in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.
The results indicate a relatively easy milling standard gold‐bearing ore with potential for low-cost processing.
Hartleys has increased its 12-month price target for Tietto to 43 cents per share from 42 cents and has maintained its Speculative Buy recommendation.
Following is an extract from Hartleys’ research update:
Initial Met Work Demonstrates Potential Low Costs
Tietto Minerals Limited (TIE) has completed initial metallurgical testwork on samples from its AG deposit within the Abujar Gold Project in Cȏte d’Ivoire. The testing complements the 2016 met work that looked at gold recoveries, and will feed into a PFS in early-2021. The results demonstrate that the ore is not overly abrasive (Ai), and that fresh ore is of medium to moderate hardness, while transitional ores were observed to be quite soft (BWi, RWi and SMC results). The bottom line at this early stage is that softer ore requires less power to grind and mill, and less abrasive material wears components at a slower rate. What this means is that costs could potentially be lower relative to a deposit comprising hard ore. Further work is required. As shown in Figure 1 at this early stage, TIE’s AG Deposit compares favourably to a small selection of ASX-listed West African peers. The SMC testwork indicates that the ore is likely amenable to single‐stage crushing followed by SAG milling in a closed circuit with or without a pebble crusher. Over the coming months, subsequent testwork programs will focus on grind size establishment, gravity recovery (previous testwork showed up to 80% gravity gold recovery in transitional and fresh ores) and cyanide leach optimisation (previous CIL recoveries were in excess of 98%).
Drilling continues to excite and expand AG
Meanwhile, TIE continues its 50,000m diamond drilling program and is expecting to deliver an update to the 2.2Moz resource in the SepQ 2020. Ongoing resource extension drilling has extended mineralisation up to 100m below the existing AG resource and remains open. Encouraging intercepts including: 10m @ 12.1g/t Au from 286m (incl. 4m @ 29.7g/t) and 7m @ 9.4g/t Au from 259m (incl. 1m @ 53.5g/t) have been returned from AG and 5m @ 4.7g/t Au from 55m (incl. 1m @ 21.2g/t Au) from APG. Ahead of the SepQ resource update, TIE is targeting resource growth with 5 dedicated diamond rigs. At AG, drilling will extend the high‐grade core (19.3Mt @ 2.2g/t Au for 1.38Moz). At AG South, drilling will target shallow high‐grade gold mineralisation directly south of AG. Targeting at APG will look for extensions to the shallow oxide resource (350koz @ 1g/t) while drilling is assessing a new area directly north of AG near extensive artisanal workings (Gamina). As TIE assesses new areas, some share price volatility could be expected if potential results do not meet the market’s expectation, which is high given the positive strides made by the explorer in 2019 at AG. As TIE casts its drilling net wider into new areas, some lower grade satellite feed may be uncovered.
AG has the makings of a standalone deposit today
We have taken the drill data for a number of ASX-listed gold development opportunities. As shown in Figure 2, when plotted we can replicate TIE’s long section to good effect. In Figure 4, we have charted our measure of Grade x Width (avg. intercept grade x avg. agg. intercept width per hole) against Total Gold (total intercept metres x avg. intercept grade). At the very least, this is an initial screening tool to compare emerging deposits. Our cursory analysis suggests that the AG deposit as a whole is an exciting opportunity and worth noting that it is still growing. The AG Core with its higher grade however, stands out as being particularly impressive and a potential standalone mine.
We maintain our Speculative Buy recommendation. Our 12-month price target is 43c (up from 42c). Like all explorers at present, TIE is risky, but has ample cash reserves of an estimated $16M.