Gryphon Minerals Limited (Gryphon Minerals or the Company) during the past twelve months has been active in exploring its flagship Banfora Gold Project in Burkina Faso. The project is located in a major gold producing district, host to such world class gold deposits as Rangold’s Tongon (4.2Moz) Resolute’s Syama (5Moz mined & 6.5M oz resources) and Anglo/Rangold’s Morila (6.5Moz) gold deposits. Results from drilling at the Banfora Gold Project continue to impress and demand that further drilling be undertaken for the upcoming year.
In September 2009, the Company announced for the Banfora Gold Project an increase in the gold resource estimation to 14 million tonnes at 2.4g/t gold for 1,100,000oz of gold, with the majority of the resource shallow and above 100 metres depth. Mineralisation remains open along strike and at depth increasing the probability of adding further ounces and increasing the resource in the near term.
Surpassing a million ounce gold resource estimate is a significant milestone for the company and a major achievement by world gold exploration standards. According to World Gold Council (WGC) statistics, very few gold discoveries over 1 million ounces are found each year globally. Since Gryphon’s first drilling programme at the Banfora Gold Project in 2006 there have only been a handful of new discoveries over 1 million ounces made globally, despite the strengthening spot gold price and increased exploration expenditure over that period.
Graph: Number of gold discoveries found per year over 1 million ounces
The Company continues to explore aggressively with drilling at both the Nogbele and Fourkoura deposits intersecting excellent mineralised widths and grades which has resulted in some of the highest gram meter intercepts to date including 10m @ 13.0g/t gold (130 gram meters), 24m @ 4.60g/t gold (110 gram meters) 24m @ 4.75g/t gold (114 gram meters).
The current drilling programmes will continue to target shallow high grade gold mineralisation (≈100 meters vertical depth) outside of the current resource estimate. Further results from ongoing drilling programmes will be made available at the earliest opportunity. The Company is anticipating a new resource estimate after the completion of this drilling campaign.
The Company believes that the drill results released to date confirm the potential for the Banfora Gold Project to host world class gold mineralisation similar to other major deposits in West Africa.
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