Shares in mineral exploration business African Gold (ASX: A1G) more than doubled on Tuesday after the company delivered “spectacular” gold intercepts from drilling at its Didievi project in the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire. 

The new results from one diamond drill hole at the Blaffo Guetto prospect were headlined by a broad and high-grade hit of 65 metres grading 5.6 grams per tonne gold from 177 metres depth. The same drillhole also returned two shallower intervals of 9m at 1.7 g/t of gold from 23m and 28m at 1.1 g/t of gold from 77m.

According to management, the stunning deeper intercept confirms that gold mineralisation extends beyond the existing resource base recently defined at the prospect, whilst also remaining open at depth.

In July, the company released a maiden resource estimate for Blaffo Guetto consisting of 4.93 million tonnes at 2.9 g/t gold for a significant 452,000 ounces of contained gold. The latest high-grade results suggest an opportunity to further grow the resource through additional drilling. 

Africa Gold managing director, Phillip Gallagher, said:

“65.0m at 5.6 g/t of gold from 177m is a spectacular result from the recent diamond drilling program on the Blaffo Guetto prospect. Excitingly, it is an extension of previous mineralisation and remains open at depth, plus it has extended our target area which this diamond drilling was designed to test. This is a fantastic result that has shown that the resource modelling that the design of this diamond drilling program was based on is proving to be accurate.”

Africa Gold launched the now completed drilling program in late August with six holes designed to test for extensions of established gold lodes at Blaffo Guetto, and to infill previous drilling on gold controlling structures located at the prospect.

According to the company, the new results from the second hole of the campaign are consistent with the group’s geological modelling and bode well for a future boost to the scale and categorisation of the existing resource.

They build on results from the first drill hole of the drilling program which earlier this month returned a respectable 33m interval grading 2.4 g/t gold from just 31m depth. Management believes this intercept to be consistent with previous drilling on Blaffo Guetto and suggests that the mineralisation at the prospect is high-grade, shallow, and potentially suitable for open pit mining.

Results from the remaining four holes of the drilling campaign remain pending.

The latest eye-catching intercepts add to a swathe of spectacular gold hits previously reported at Blaffo Guetto, including 10m at 124 g/t gold from 66m which also contained a 2m interval at a striking grade of 613 g/t gold. Other noteworthy strikes from past drilling include 83.3m at 3.3 g/t gold, 17.4m at 17 g/t gold, and 37m at 7.7 g/t gold.

More broadly, Blaffo Guetto represents just one of at least nine prospects showing potential for gold mineralisation within the 391 square kilometre landholding at Didievi.

Curiously, management believes the recent discovery of a quartz porphyry acting as a main host of the gold mineralisation at Blaffo Guetto could point to a new mineralisation type at the project, and potentially open the door for new gold discoveries across the wider Didevi tenure.

Phillip Gallagher added:

“Along with the Blaffo Guetto prospect, the Didievi Project has other exciting prospects that remain substantially untested, including the Kouassi and Akissi Prospects to the north of Blaffo Guetto and the 11km long Poku gold trend located to the south-west. As the discovery of the new quartz porphyries at Blaffo Guetto demonstrate, there is also the potential for new discoveries across the project area. These fantastic drilling results today strengthen our belief that the Didievi Project has the potential to be a multi-million-ounce deposit.”

Gold mineralisation at Didevi is found within an underexplored and emerging geological structure known as the Oume-Fetekro Birimian greenstone belt, which is already known to host several significant gold deposits.

These include the 4 million ounce Bonikro/Hire and the 1.2 million ounce Agbaou gold mines operated by Canadian outfit Allied Gold, as well as the 2.5 million ounce Lafigué deposit recently brought to production by London-listed Endeavour Mining.

More generally, Côte d’Ivoire is regarded as an emerging gold producing jurisdiction already boasting six major operating mines and a host of multi-million-ounce projects at the development stage of operations.