Loncor Gold (LN.V) announced last week that three drill rigs are currently mobilized to its flagship Adumbi gold project in the DRC.
Two of the three rigs will focus on a 11,000 meter core drill program below the open pit at Adumbi. As explained in a previous report, that is a high-priority target zone for the company to find more high-grade mineralization to further boost the existing 3.66 million ounce resource estimate (1.88Moz in the indicated resource category and 1.78 Moz in the inferred resource category) at Adumbi. The drill program will consist of fifteen intersections below the pit shell, and this should be sufficient to define an underground resource.
As a reminder, the company has an official exploration target of 8.9-9.6 million tonnes at an average grade of 4.7-4.9 g/t for a total of 1.35-1.5 million ounces of gold. While this target is based on a maximum depth of 800 meters, this would boost the total gold resource to around 5 million ounces, in which Loncor Gold would own an 84.68% interest.
The third drill rig will execute a drill program designed to drill-test four exploration targets towards the southeast from Adumbi, on the same structural shear zone. Historical work (including old colonial trenches and artisanal workings) have outlined four mineralized trends, which are summarized below:
This scout drilling program will consist of twelve holes. We are looking forward to seeing drill results there as Imbo East could potentially become a satellite deposit and provide additional mill feed to the Adumbi infrastructure should a gold mine be developed further down the road. This year’s drill program will be important to add more value to the Adumbi project (and the Imbo license as a whole). The existing resource will be updated after this year’s drill program and the updated resource will be the basis for an updated economic study.
Disclosure: The author has a long position in Loncor Gold. Loncor is a sponsor of the website. Please read the disclaimer.
