Aurum Resources has appointed experienced African gold miner Caigen Wang as its new managing director as the company works-up the shallow, wide gold-bearing orebody at its Boundiali project in Côte d'Ivoire.
Wang is no stranger to maturing African gold discoveries into producing mines, taking Tietto Minerals from a market cap of about $30 million to nearly $700 million on the back of a 200,000-ounce per year production forecast at its Abujar gold mine, also in Côte D’Ivoire. He founded Tietto in 2010 after holding positions at St Barbara, Sons of Gwalia, BHP Billiton and China Goldmines.
The new Aurum boss also spent seven years lecturing and was an associate professor at the China University of Mining and Technology.
Wang retired from his position at Tietto in May last year. He was then tapped on the shoulder by Aldoro Resources, stepping into the role of non-executive director as that company progressed its Namibian gold interests. He still holds that position.
In November last year, Aurum acquired PlusOr Global and in turn the Boundiali project, which is now the centre of attention for the company as it drills beneath and next to artisanal mines in its hunt for the precious yellow metal – a bid aimed at repeating the Tietto success story.
Assays from Boundiali have already been raising eyebrows across the ASX, with solid grades and widths firming up the area as a host for wide, shallow gold mineralisation.
Last week, Aurum released assays from the first eight diamond drill holes at the project, with the best intersections going 16m at 1.24 grams per tonne from 117m including a 6m thick section grading 2.44g/t from 127m and 7.39m at 1.94g/t from 139.34m including a 5.35m chunk at 2.53g/t from 141.37m.
Other notable results were 16.3m at 1.02g/t from 86.7m including an 8m section grading 1.71g/t from 95m, 15.82m at 0.94g/t from 5.18m including 4.5m at 1.77g/t from 16.5m, 10.5m at 0.95g/t from 21m and 13.95m at 0.85g/t from 181m.
Boundiali is made up of two tenements – Boundiali BM and Boundiali BD – and the recent set of assays are the first from the now complete 31-hole diamond drillhole program at Boundiali BM. Management says assays from the remaining 23 holes are with the lab and are expected sometime during this year’s first quarter year.
The two rigs, which were picked-up by Aurum as part of the PlusOr deal, have now been moved to the Boundiali BD tenement and are in the process of putting down 51 diamond drillholes planned to provide 7145m of core for sampling and lab assay.
Aurum says the project offers the potential for a low-cost, free-digging mining operation leading to a future open-pit mine.
About 50km to the north of Boundiali, Perseus Mining is sitting on a 1.4-million-ounce gold resource at its Sissingue mine and some 120km to the south, Montage Gold’s Koné project contains 4 million ounces of gold.
And following Wang’s appointment, market watchers can expect a solid flow of news from Aurum in the coming months, with assays coming back thick and fast from Boundiali.
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