Loncor Gold (LN.V) has now announced the three drill rigs and the staff have arrived on the Adumbi camp site in preparation of a new drill program which will focus on expanding the gold resource just under the bottom of the currently-designed open pit.
Two core rigs will complete 11,000 meters of drilling below that pit, where the company has outlined an exploration target of 8.9-9.6 million tonnes with an average grade of 4.7-4.9 g/t gold up to a depth of approximately 800 meters. Expressed in ounces, this exploration target would host 1.35-1.5 million ounces of gold which would push the current gold resource at Adumbi to in excess of 5 million ounces on a consolidated basis (the project currently hosts an indicated resource of 1.8 million ounces of gold at 2.08 g/t gold in the indicated resource category and 1.78 million ounces at an average grade of 2.65 g/t gold in the inferred resource category).
The 11,000 meter drill program will consist of 15 intersections below the pit shell and the company’s technical team thinks that should suffice to put an inferred resource estimate together.
Additionally, a third core rig will complete a 2,400 meter, 12 hole drill program to drill-test four exploration targets that are located 8-13 kilometers to the southeast from Adumbi, but are hosted on the same major structural shear that runs through the 84.68% owned Imbo project (where Adumbi is a part of).
At a share price of less than C$0.40 and a market cap of just around US$40M, the company is trading at just US$12.5 per ounce in the ground (across all categories, and adjusted for the ownership percentage in Adumbi) and the fully-funded drill program (assuming the sale of the Makapela project is completed) could increase this to around 5 million ounces for a pro forma value of US$9 per ounce in the ground.
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