>Salman gives Adamus early bites By: Peter Gonnella Posted:...

>Salman gives Adamus early bites

By: Peter Gonnella


Posted: 2003/02/18 Tue 18:16 ZE8 | © Mineweb 1997-2003


PERTH – Adamus Resources [ASX:ADU] is the latest Aussie junior to buck conventional Aussie thinking in relation to mining investment in perceived higher-risk countries and take a punt on a potential company-making project in Africa.
Last month the company unveiled excellent first-up drilling results from its wholly-owned Salman gold project, located on the southern extension of the Ashanti shear zone in Ghana, with significant gold mineralisation encountered to a depth of 80m.

According to an Adamus announcement, independent consultants, the Resource Services Group, have already predicted that it is “highly likely a significant oxide and primary resource will be identified at Salman”.

Adamus, which listed on the ASX in June 2001, is in the enviable position of owning significant exploration data compiled from previous field work done on the Adamus ground, which has given the junior explorer a tremendous headstart in its quest to define economic reserves.

It snapped up Salman from unlisted AGR in mid-2002 for the relative pittance of approximately 10 million ordinary shares in Adamus.

AGR bought Salman from BHP, who believed it couldn’t establish a world-class 10-million-ounce deposit there. The global giant spent US$4 million on exploration within Adamus’ 84sq.km tenement area in the mid-1990s, while the Ghanaian Government ploughed about US$2 million into mostly trenching prior to that, which Adamus’ managing director Hamish Halliday said also provided valuable information and instant targets.

In all BHP drilled 71 RC holes for a total of 6,961m and four diamond holes for a total of 571m. “As the drilling was completed on very broad spaced lines (300-500m apart), a meaningful resource was never calculated,” Halliday said.

The initial round of RC drilling being conducted by Adamus is aimed at testing a couple of zones within an anomaly that spans more than 4km along strike. Trench sampling of these areas by AGR demonstrated substantial mineralisation at surface with a best assay of 100m grading 6.1g/t gold. Additional results from Adamus’ current drilling program are expected over the next few weeks. “On completion of the program both the Central and Northern Zones, which have a combined strike length of 1.2km, will have been drill tested down to a line spacing of 50m,” outlined Halliday, who was optimistic the exploration would continue to confirm consistency of mineralisation along strike. “The results will provide both assay data and geological information to assist in defining a gold resource and in building a geological model for the mineralisation at Salman.

“Both the style of mineralisation and geological setting are comparable to Bogosu gold mine (40km along strike to the north) which has successfully mined oxide ore for over 10 years,” he added. Bogosu is operated by Golden Star Resources [TSE:GSC].