Golden Rim Resources Ltd (ASX:GMR) has set itself up for a transformative 2021, following a $5 million capital raise to fund exploration at its flagship Kouri and Kada gold projects in West Africa.
The Kouri Gold Project, in northeast Burkina Faso, has an indicated and inferred mineral resource of 50 million tonnes at 1.3 g/t gold for two million ounces.
The project covers 325 square kilometres of highly prospective Birimian greenstones - major sources of gold and diamonds, stretching across Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire.
Golden Rim has discovered significant additional gold mineralisation, including a high-grade gold shoot, and the gold inventory at Kouri is expected to continue to grow.
Second project
Meanwhile, the company has secured a second highly promising gold project, Kada, in eastern Guinea.
Samples gathered from the Kada project.
Guinea is one of the most under-explored countries in West Africa and Kada was previously explored by Newmont who completed 39 kilometres of drilling and defined a non-JORC gold resource.
Golden Rim is targeting a maiden mineral resource this year and believes there is considerable upside for the discovery of additional gold mineralisation, as much of the 300 square kilometre area has been poorly explored.
To fund work at the projects - in the short-term a scoping study at Kouri and exploration at Kada - Golden Rim recently secured $5 million through a placement to institutional, professional and sophisticated investors.
Kouri - Golden Rim’s flagship
Managing director Craig Mackay told Proactive the company’s experience and local knowledge would bring the most out of the Kouri project.
“It is our second discovery in Burkina Faso, we’ve operated happily there for a decade,” he said.
“Our resource update last October showed that, for a company like ours, it’s a very sizable resource, and we’ve only explored about 30 per cent of our licensed area.
“As COVID hit, we made some high-grade intercepts - in Burkina Faso you get these high-grade shoots, and now we are going back and simply drilling to find out what is down there.”
Mackay said Golden Rim expected to complete a scoping study at Kouri in the second half of the year, with infill drilling expected to increase the indicated resource estimate, and this will be preceded by a raft of drilling results in the short-term.
Kada – Golden Rim’s new discovery
Mackay said Golden Rim was confident it would make good on drilling conducted by Newmont several years ago at Kada in Guinea, saying the project will only add to the company’s value.
“We’re pretty confident we will have a sizable maiden mineral resource estimate in the second half of the year,” he told Proactive.
“With infill drilling, we will confirm what is down there, and we will fill the gaps left by Newmont.
“Even more exciting is that the licence package we’ve built up has so much unexplored potential - Newmont only drilled about two per cent of what we own, the rest is unexplored.
“Guinea is really going to take off, being one of the most unexplored areas in West Africa, and we have airborne geophysics, auger drilling of regional targets and infill drilling all planned for the coming months.”
What sets Golden Rim apart
Golden Rim worked hard throughout 2020, making significant progress despite a global pandemic, and Mackay said it was the company’s knowledge and experience in West Africa that set it apart from other ASX-listed gold explorers.
“Our low value is pretty compelling,” he said, “when you look at other companies with similar assets to us.
“We’ve been exploring uninterrupted in West Africa for 10 years and we have a local team, we don’t fly expats in and out.”
The company also has a silver-lead-zinc-copper project in northern Chile, which Mackay said was on the table.
“It is a non-core asset for us but it is sizable in itself, with a measured, indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate of 2.4 million tonnes at 88 g/t silver, 5.0% zinc and 1.4% lead for 6.8 million ounces of silver, 265 million pounds of zinc and 74 million pounds of lead.
“It is totally forgotten in our market cap, but it certainly has great potential and is something we’re looking to divest.”
- Daniel Paproth