Vancouver Some eight years after gaining a foot hold in the political plagued but mineral-rich Democratric Republic of the Congo and five years since the government took its exploration projects away, Banro (YBE-V) is once again looking to resume work on the advanced Twangiza gold property in the South Kivu province.
Located some 35 km west of the Burundi border and 150 km to the south of Goma, the 930 sq km property has an exploration history dating back to 1957, when Minire des Grande Lacs (MGL) followed the occurrence of alluvial gold deposits upstream from the Mwana River to the present day deposit. In total over 8,200 metres of trenching and 12,000 metres of adits on seven levels were developed before Banro became involved back in 1996. The junior went on to complete 10,490 line-km of airborne geophysics and 9,122 metres of diamond drilling.
Shortly after completing the work in 1998, the project and three others held by Banro were expropriated by Laurent Kabila’s regime in the wake of civil war. Banro immediately launched a US$1 billion lawsuit but it was not until earlier this year that with a peace accord in hand, the new government led by President Joseph Kabila returned the junior’s mining assets.
While discussions are underway with government for resuming an exploration program on Banro’s four projects; Twangiza, Kamituga, Lugushwa and Namoya, the junior’s first move was to hire CME Consulting to up date the resource at Twangiza.
Using a 0.5 gram gold cut off, the oxide portion of the desposit hosts a measured and indicated resource of 6 million tonnes grading 3.17 grams gold per tonne, plus an inferred resource of 3.5 million tonnes grading 2.62 grams gold. In the sulphide portion, the measured and indicated resource tallies 48.4 million tonnes grading 1.26 gram gold, plus another 35.7 million tonnes grading 1.19 grams gold in the inferred section. Based on the study, the measured and indicated resource holds some 2.6 million oz of contained gold, while the inferred portion conatins another 1.6 million oz of the yellow metal.
At a 0.5 gram cut off, an estimated 1.3 million tonnes of the oxide resource (measured and indicated) was determined to have been removed since 1998.
Upping the cut off to 2 grams gold, the measured and indicated resource for the oxide material comes in at 4 million tonnes grading 3.98 grams gold, plus an inferred resource of 2 million tonnes grading 3.62 grams gold. The sulphide section rings in at 6.7 million tonnes grading 2.81 grams gold for the measured and indicated portion and 4.2 million tonnes grading 2.6 grams gold sitting in the inferred section.
The 800 metre long deposit is hosted in a relatively unaltered, folded sedimentary sequence of mudstone, siltstone and greywacke that have been intruded by an intercalated sequence of altered intrusive sills. The intrusive sills comprise a mafic porphyry phase and a feldspar porphyry phase. The folding of the anticlinal structure, which is home to the deposit, resulted in fracturing perpendicular to bedding and along the anticline axis. At the same time east-west trending left-lateral faults dissected the anticline. Ascending hydrothermal fluids were influenced by the east-west faults and bedding planes resulting in gold-bearing zones forming as crescent-shaped lenses of mineralization preferentially located in the upper side of the sills.
Gold occurs with sulphide mineralization in albite-ankerite and dolomite-quartz veins and with disseminated sulphides mainly in the albite-altered sills and sediments. Drill Intersections range from less than one metre grading 3.1 grams gold up to 197 metres grading 3.49 grams gold.
On the regional front, Banro has identifed several magnetic geophysical anomalies north and south of the deposit that are coincidental with gold showings over a 38 sq km area along the Twangiza trend. Grab samples collected by the company returned up to 54.79 grams gold, while channel samples yielded up to 15.43 grams gold over 2 metres.
With stability returning to the region, Banro is planning a program of geological mapping and rock and soil sampling leading to the diamond drilling of the priority targets.
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