Miner Arc Minerals (LSE:ARCM) was up 12.5% to 4.5p this morning on the announcement of an update to the mineral resource for the Akyanga deposit. The asset is part of its Casa project, located in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – Arc Minerals has a 99% interest in CASA Mining Limited, a private company which has a 71.25% interest in the Akyanga gold deposit.
The JORC mineral resource has almost doubled to 3m ounces of gold averaging 2.16 grams per tonne. In addition, Arc states that the Akyanga structure remains open in several directions and geological indicators suggest the Misisi corridor and surrounding targets have the ‘potential to continue to deliver further substantial growth in the Company’s mineral inventory’.
Arc has a Near-term exploration target of a further 200,000 to 600,000 ounces of gold in the Akyanga East Area with further exploration targets along the 55km gold belt within its 133km² mining license.
Nick von Schirnding, ARC’s Executive Chairman, commented:
“The increase in Akyanga’s JORC mineral resource from 1.6m ozs to 3m ozs is a game-changer for us and has exceeded our most optimistic expectations. The increased ounces and grade has the potential to significantly enhance the economics of developing the mine. We shall now commence with a scoping study, targeting a 150koz-200koz per annum low cost gold operation, to be completed by year end.
Our ability to upgrade this significant, near-surface gold deposit in such a short timeframe clearly demonstrates the largely untapped potential of both the Akyanga project and the 55km long gold belt within our 133km2 mining license area”
The company has a number of other assets including interests in other gold plays in Slovakia and Eritrea. It recently increased its holding in Zamsort Limited to 61%. Zamsort is a company focused on a prospective copper and cobalt licence in the Zambia Copperbelt. Last month we reported Arc had appointed former head of mining operations at Rio Tinto in Africa, South America, and Europe, Don Bailey as a non-executive Director. His role will be to lead the development of a commercial-scale copper and cobalt processing plant in Zambia.
In today’s RNS update, Schirnding added:
“We look forward to updating shareholders on further developments at Casa as well as at our Zamsort copper/cobalt project where drilling is about to commence and completion work on the plant is underway.”
Author: Stuart Langelaan
Disclosure: The author does not hold positions in any of the stocks mentioned above