Having recently secured a commitment from TVX Gold to develop its Snow Lake gold property in Manitoba, High River Gold Mines is now setting its sights on West Africa.
The company has just concluded an agreement with the government of Burkina Faso on the Taparko gold property, 70 km southwest of Dori in the northeast. (Burkina Faso, formerly part of French West Africa, is immediately north of Ivory Coast and Ghana.)
High River will spend US$5.9 million over four years to earn, jointly with Incanore Resources, an 80% interest in the project. High River will own 61.5%, while Incanore (a private, Quebec-based company) will hold 18.5%. The 500-sq.-mile concession contains a major shear zone and quartz vein system which have been traced over a length of four miles. High River President David Mosher told The Northern Miner the deposit is open along strike, being covered with laterite to the north and alluvium to the south. Working for the Burkina Faso government, Minorex, a Canadian consulting firm, has outlined six mineralized zones along the shear corridor. This corridor occurs in the same Birimian-aged rocks that host the major Ashanti gold deposit in Ghana. Past production and reserves at Ashanti total more than 20 million oz. gold.
Trenching, surface rock sampling and limited drilling on one of the targets have outlined more than 100,000 tons averaging greater than 0.4 oz. gold per ton. The estimated average true width of the zone is 20 ft. This zone has only been drilled to a depth of 80 ft. and is open at depth and along strike. Limited trenching on the other targets also indicates economic grades are present over minable widths.
High River expects to ratify the agreement with the Burkina Faso government in March and then begin exploring the concession.
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