An Australian explorer has hit gold grading 109.8 grams per metric ton deep beneath its flagship project in Côte d’Ivoire, adding weight to the case that the deposit keeps getting richer as it goes down.
Many Peaks Minerals, listed in Sydney as MPK, said the 1.85 meter intercept came from hole FNDC166 at the Ouarigue deposit, part of its Ferké gold project. It sits inside a 46.75 meter zone averaging 7.02 grams per metric ton. The existing resource averages 1.54 grams per metric ton, so that zone runs at more than four times the grade.
The wider picture is just as striking. The company reported 188.9 meters averaging 3.58 grams per metric ton, starting 633 meters down the hole. Its estimated true width is 95.3 meters, a measure of the mineralized body’s thickness at right angles, which is shorter than the slanted distance along the drill hole.
A second hole, a wedge drilled off an earlier one, returned 59.2 meters at 2.30 grams per metric ton from 556.8 meters. That included 34.2 meters at 3.34 grams per metric ton and a 4 meter stretch at 20.8 grams per metric ton.
Managing Director Travis Schwertfeger said the results show gold grades holding up beneath the current resource and point to rising gold content for each vertical meter of depth. He said the data will feed into a planned resource update and into work on underground mining options.
That update matters. The current estimate stands at 26.7 million metric tons averaging 1.54 grams per metric ton, for 1.323 million ounces, reported in April under the JORC 2012 code. The latest results mark the data cutoff for a revised estimate, which the company expects to finish this quarter. Prefeasibility level open pit studies are moving ahead, and a scoping study is weighing underground development. A definitive feasibility study is planned for 2027.
Shallower drilling added to the story. Thirty-one reconnaissance holes totaling 3,350 meters found widening mineralization roughly 3 kilometers south of Ouarigue, including 9 meters at 4.33 grams per metric ton and a 2 meter hit at 12.6 grams per metric ton. Seven more holes close to the surface near Ouarigue all intersected gold. The company said further drilling is needed to prove continuity between the southern results.
More data is coming. Assays are still pending for 28 holes, due within a month, and more drilling along the Leraba trend, which stretches more than 37 kilometers, is expected to begin in the same period.
Investors should read the numbers with care. Many Peaks said the economic parameters for any deeper resource have not been set, and the results will not necessarily increase or upgrade the current estimate. Intercepts are reported as downhole lengths above a 0.3 gram per metric ton cutoff.
The news arrives with gold trading just under $4,200 an ounce, a price that keeps pressure on explorers to prove deeper deposits can pay their way.
