Awale drills new gold-copper discovery in West Africa
Awale Resources Ltd. [ARIC-TSXV] on Wednesday said drilling has intersected high-grade gold and a new copper-gold discovery at its Odienne Project in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa.
The greater Odienne project lies in the northwest Denguele Region of Cote d’Ivoire, close to the borders of Mali and Guinea. The project covers approximately 1,600 square kilometres on four permits, two of which (Odienne East and Odienne West) are held under a joint venture with a unit of Newmont Corp. [NGT-TSX, NEM-NYSE], which can earn a 75% interest in the permits by spending US$15 million on exploration.
Awale has said it considers the Odienne project to contain significant potential for the discovery of the first major Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) deposit in West Africa.
In a press release on January 17, 2023, the company said  the Newmont joint venture team drilled the first scout holes into the Sceptre East Anomaly which forms part of the larger 20 square kilometre highly anomalous copper Sceptre mineralized system.
Nne holes, covering 1,292.2 metres were completed over initial geophysical and geochemical targets, with seven holes having intersected significant alteration and sulfide mineralization.
“Initial observations from the drilling at Sceptre East show that we have intercepted an alteration and mineralized system with extensive chalcopyrite and molybdenite mineralization, and which remains open in all directions,’’ said Awale CEO Glen Parsons.
“These initial holes at Sceptre East have only tested a fraction of the broader 5.0-kilometre-long Sceptre copper-gold in soil anomaly,’’ he said.
On Wednesday, the company released assay results for scout drilling at the Charger and Sceptre East targets.
Highlight assays from the Charger Target include hole OERC-132 which returned 32 metres at 3.0 g/t gold, 0.17% copper, and 6.6 g/t silver from 74 metres downhole, including 4.0 metres of 12.4 g/t gold, 0.7% copper, and 30 g/t silver from 78 metres downhole.
Highlights from the Sceptre East target include hole OERC-128, which returned 120 metres of 0.13% copper, 0.14 g/t gold, 1.5 g/t silver and 82 ppm molybdenum from 6.0 metres downhole.
Awale shares were unchanged at 12.5 cents on volume of 553,000. The shares trade in a 52-week range of 28.5 cents and 11 cents.
“The results from these nine scout holes at the Charger and Sceptre East targets mark an exciting turning point for Awale going forward,’’ said Parsons. “The Odienne project has two new discoveries from the first two targets drilled under the Newmont-funded joint venture, it seems clear that we are exploring in a large scale polymetallic system that is now delivering exciting results and confirming the intrusive and structural related models with multi-phase fluid flow,’’ he said.
“The understanding of the sheer scale of the Odienne mineralized system is unfolding and accelerating as the exploration program gathers momentum.’’