West African gold explorer and developer Azumah Resources Ltd has commenced a 40,000 m, A$4 million multi-target drilling campaign aimed at lifting Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves at its Wa gold project in Ghana, where the primary objective is to deliver an economically attractive, development-ready project by Q3 2019.

Azumah Managing Director, Stephen Stone, said “We have a multitude of stand-out targets across our vast and highly prospective Wa gold project tenure that we are confident will deliver increases in Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves.

“[Those interested] can look forward to a steady flow of project news including progress updates to the feasibility study and Ore Reserves by the end of 2018, as well as numerous drilling results well into 2019.

“Our exploration strategy has been developed by renowned orogenic gold specialist, Dr Jon Hronsky, who is a founding partner of our joint venture partner, Ibaera Capital, which is sole-funding and managing the 40,000 m drilling campaign.”

Paul L’Herpiniere, who is also a founding partner of and General Partner – Exploration and Evaluation at Ibaera Capital said: “The entire team is eager to commence what will be an exciting exploration campaign at the Wa project, following on the back of last season’s increase in Mineral Resources to 2.5 Moz which was largely achieved through focused drilling at previously defined prospects.

“A particular focus for us this season is to evaluate the depth extent of mineralisation at our flagship Kunche, Bepkong and Julie deposits, as that could provide us with the option of adding underground production to the life-of-mine development strategy.”

• 7,000 m of RC/Diamond drilling  to test for open-ended depth extensions to bottom-of-pit high-grade mineralisation at Kunche, Bepkong and Julie deposits; to expand Mineral Resources; and for new prospect development
• 3,000 m of RC drilling to upgrade in-pit inferred Mineral Resources to indicated status for inclusion in pit optimisations
• 8,000 m of RC drilling to target and delineate new shallow resources across the project
• 7,000 m of aircore drilling to test and expand multiple existing auger and VTEM generated targets and prospects
• Up to 15,000 m of auger drilling to better define and infill existing anomalies and to identify new ones
• Up to 5,000 m of trenching to test the Eve, Laudetta, Danyawu SW and Kjersti prospect areas
• Strong drill results news flow well into 2019
• Ore Reserves and feasibility study progress update is on-track for end-2018 delivery.