Birimian greenstone belt

LGL has over 22,000 square kilometres of exploration licences either granted or under application in Côte d'Ivoire covering in excess of 700 kilometres of strike of highly prospective West African Birimian greenstone belts. The greenstone belts in Côte d'Ivoire are similar to or extensions of geology in the surrounding countries of Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea. This West African geological setting has yielded numerous multi-million ounce gold discoveries in the above countries and in Côte d'Ivoire over recent years.

Exploration activities

LGL has six drill rigs working full time in Côte d'Ivoire on various projects. The company is currently drilling in excess of 250,000 metres a year and will spend approximately US$27 million on exploration in 2009. The tenement package presents the full range of exploration opportunities including numerous untested geochemical soil anomalies, prospects with anomalous drill intersections requiring follow up, three projects with quoted resources and one with a mineable reserve (Bonikro).

Bonikro

Strong potential exists to increase the resource base at the Bonikro deposit, especially below current pit outline, as well as along strike to the north and south. Geochemical and geophysical surveys to date, together with limited drill testing, indicate numerous prospects within 30 kilometres of Bonikro that offer strong opportunity to supplement the present mine plan.

Oumé

The Oumé permit is located approximately 15 kilometres north of the Bonikro deposit. A number of significant results have been returned from reverse circulation (RC) drilling. Recent diamond drilling returned 15m at 2.0g/t Au from 117m depth and 4m at 2.3g/t Au from 102m depth, confirming the presence of significant mineralisation and broad zones of alteration at depth within a number of prospect areas.

Hiré

The Hiré permit is located 12 kilometres from the Bonikro permit. The Hiré permit includes individual prospects of Agbale, Akissi-So, Central, Chappell and Assonji-So (in order from north to south), all of which contain significant gold mineralisation. Mineralisation is hosted within granodiorite, the same host unit to the Bonikro deposit. The combined Inferred Resources for the Akissi-So and Assonji-So prospects total some 3.46Mt at 3.3g/t Au for 365,100oz. The Resources at Hiré are likely to add to the Bonikro mineral inventory.

The Chappell Prospect has significant potential to host economic mineralisation and is located between the Akissi-So and Asonji-So deposits in the central portion of the Hiré licence.  Significant (+50ppb) gold in soil anomalies occur over a 1.6 kilometre strike length, trending in a north-easterly direction. Only limited RAB and RC drilling has been completed to date, with mineralisation similar to the Akissi-So and Assonji-So deposits being encountered.

Kokoumbo

The Kokoumbo permit is located 35 kilometres northeast of the Bonikro deposit, and has a number of high tenor soil anomalies. Recent RAB drilling has returned significant results including 6m at 19.41g/t Au from 8m depth (including one 4m composite sample grading 65g/t Au).

For more information, download our fact sheets:

 Côte d'Ivoire Fact Sheet - English (2.6 MB)
 Côte d'Ivoire Fact Sheet - French (2.6 MB)
 Bonikro Fact Sheet (233 KB)