Kodal Minerals PLC (LSE:KOD) said the mining licence application for its flagship Bougouni lithium project in southern Mali is in the final stages of approval and that everything is progressing as expected.
The application has been forwarded from the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water to the Secretary General's office for final review prior to presentation at the Conseil des Ministres, the final stage prior to the signing of the licence.
Kodal also announced the results of aircore drilling at the Nielle gold concession in northern Ivory Coast. The results confirmed 4.5km gold mineralised trend with extensions of up to 1.5km south and over 1km north.
Significant results from the recently completed drilling include 2 metres at 675 parts per billion (ppb) gold from a depth of 26 metres, including 1 metre at 1140ppb gold; 6 metres at 240ppb gold and 1 metre at 780ppb gold. It noted that 100ppb gold equals 0.1 grammes a tonne of gold.
"Our first gold exploration drilling campaign at the Nielle concession has been very successful,” said chief executive Bernard Aylward.
“As previously announced the reverse circulation drilling returned high-grade gold mineralisation and now our reconnaissance aircore drilling is demonstrating major strike extensions as well as additional parallel zones of mineralisation.
“This aircore drilling is wide spaced, however the tenor of gold anomalism returned is consistent with the initial drilling that discovered the Nielle gold mineralised zone.
“Further exploration drilling will be undertaken later this year with the objective of delivering a maiden mineral resource estimate," he concluded.