Another fringe miner who will rely on SDL's infrastructure, and is confident that SDL will find a strategice partner...
West African Minerals moves to prove up a "potentially significant" iron ore resource in Cameroon Thursday, April 18, 2013 by Ian Lyall
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West African Minerals (LON:WAFM) is ready to embark on an infill drilling programme on its Djadom South iron ore property in Cameroon to prove up a “potentially significant resource”.
It revealed its plans alongside the latest set of scout drilling results.
The data from this latest exploration round have helped extend the strike length of near-surface hematite and enriched banded iron over six kilometres.
The data includes two holes grading 57.3% and 53.7% iron respectively taken from surface or near surface.
In all, 11 of the 27 holes were mineralised, and six of them contained what the company described as significant mineralised intervals.
The plan now is to begin a 300-hole infill drill over a 3.6 kilometre (km) by 1.2km grid.
A second reverse circulation drill rig and two diamond rigs have been mobilised and will be operational by mid-June, West African said.
They will be used in the grid drilling and will help provide “better geologic understanding of the mineralisation encountered to date”.
There will also be additional scout drilling. The results build on an already impressive array of drilling data compiled from Djadom South, one of six licences in Cameroon.
Vice chairman Brad Mills said, "The scout drilling programme at Djadom South has now identified a significant area of near-surface hematite mineralisation and enriched banded iron formation.
“This discovery now warrants an extensive infill grid drilling programme to prove up a potentially significant resource.
“We are very encouraged by the rapidly expanding area of known high grade iron mineralisation originally indicated by our geophysical work and confirmed by our scout drilling programme. We will continue to test further the potential strike extensions of mineralisation along the trend of the geophysical anomaly. "
Djadom is very close to Sundance Resources’ giant Mbalam-Nabeba project that straddles the Cameroon-Congo border.
The ASX-listed group recently terminated a US$1.3bn takeover deal with China’s Hanlong Mining, central to the development of the region.
“While Sundance is in limbo at the moment, after the Hanlong bid fell through, we remain confident that it will eventually find a strategic partner,” said Investec in a note to clients.
“West African’s project should therefore be well placed if infrastructure is put in place to access Sundance’s project.”
At 11.20am, West African Minerals shares were changing hands for 33.72 pence each for a fall of around 2% today.
