Gold and base metals tenements granted

RNS Number : 9565U

Aura Energy Limited

03 April 2019

 

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3 April 2019

AURA ENERGY LIMITED

("Aura" or the "Company")

GOLD, BASE AND BATTERY METAL

TENEMENTS GRANTED IN MAURITANIA

AURA EXPANDS MINERAL FOOTPRINT IN MAURITANIA ON 45 KMs HIGH POTENTIAL UNDER-EXPLORED ARCHEAN GREENSTONE BELTS

HIGH QUALITY GOLD PROSPECTS ALONG TREND

FROM AN OPERATING +20 MILLION OUNCE PROJECT

·     Aura Energy secured rights to acquire 2 exploration permits on extensive Archean Greenstone belts in Mauritania in April 2017

·     These tenements have today been granted after an extensive period

·     Excellent results in previous early stage drilling indicate both system size and elevated gold, nickel and cobalt grades.

Aura Energy Limited (AEE) is pleased to announce that after an extensive period of time it has been granted exploration licences for its gold, base and battery metal tenements in Mauritania.

The tenements of 175km² cover two under-explored mineralised greenstone belts in Mauritania (See Fig 2). The areas lie along strike from Kinross' giant +20 Moz Tasiast Gold Mine and from Algold's Tijirit gold deposits.  Aura has long maintained that these tenements, with the single large Tasiast gold mine along strike, and strong base and battery metal results, represent some of the best under-explored greenstone belt targets in the world.

These highly prospective gold, base and battery metal areas represent an excellent opportunity in lightly explored Archean greenstone belts and will leverage Aura's extensive operating experience in this part of the world. The project is favourably located 200 km from Aura's Nouakchott office, 60 km from the coast, and can be managed efficiently within the company's existing management resources without distraction from Aura's core uranium focus.

Figure 1:

Location of the Tasiast South project

The prospects cover portions of the Tasiast and Tijirit Greenstone Belts and have been explored previously by only one other company which was forced to suspend activities in the mineral industry downturn in 2012, despite having located zones of significant gold mineralisation.  Members of Aura's current technical team were involved in this previous work and are well acquainted with the area.

Aura's Tasiast South project area has the following attributes;

·     Tenements over two lightly explored greenstone belts covering 175 km²

·     The +20 Moz Tasiast gold deposit is nearby on the same greenstone belt and highlights the gold bearing character and potential for major deposits in these belts (See Fig 2)

·     $3m has been expended by the previous explorer on airborne geophysics, reverse circulation and air-core drilling, and sampling

·     Broad zones of gold mineralisation have been identified with strong similarities to the Tasiast Gold Mine mineralisation and alteration

·     No testing deeper than 150m with most previous holes less than 100m

·     High grade drill intersections have been reported by others in the district from both past and current programs, including one in progress by Algold Resources (TSX), which highlight the current interest and potential in these poorly tested belts 

Figure 2:

Location of Aura areas in relation to known mineralisation

(see ASX Announcement Drake Resources Ltd 7 May 2012)

Peter Reeve, Aura Energy's Executive Chairman said "It has taken some time to achieve this tenement grant but to have the opportunity to explore these extremely under-explored greenstone belts with high quality preliminary gold exploration results is exceptional in our opinion. With the huge Tasiast Gold Mine on the same belt just north of our project, the potential for multi-million ounce discoveries, in the eyes of our technical people, is very conceivable".

"Additionally since the first application for these tenements the world has changed significantly with respect to battery metals and the significant cobalt results already achieved in a broad nickel occurrence these tenements may provide interesting results in that area".

"We will maintain our core focus in Mauritania of getting the Tiris Uranium Project DFS completed and the project into production as soon as possible. However, given our extensive knowledge of Mauritania and the association of our technical people with the project this presents a high-quality opportunity in a country we know well. It is a rare opportunity, in our opinion, to add significant shareholder value for Aura Energy", Mr Reeve continued.

(The following technical analysis of the Tasiast region, including the two exploration tenements granted by the Mauritanian Government to the Company, has been sourced from announcements to the ASX by Drake Resources Ltd and Press Releases made by Algold Resources ltd and Kinross Gold Corporation and data available to the Company on the exploration activities of Drake Resources Ltd. For clarity, Aura does not hold any interest in these companies or their licences.)

Air-core drilling to bedrock by the previous explorer located several anomalous gold zones, up to eight kilometres in length (See Fig 3). Of particular interest is the Ghassariat Zone, which has 1-3 g/t gold values (see ASX Announcement Drake Resources Ltd 7 May 2012) on three of the four air-core traverses drilled. This anomaly extends over about eight kilometres parallel to the strike of the greenstone belt.

The Ghassariat Prospect intersections occur in strongly sulphidic and quartz-veined mafic volcanics and have marked similarities with some of the ore zones and near-ore alteration zones at the neighbouring Kinross Tasiast Mine (See Fig 4).

Figure 3:

Ghassariat Zone location and gold anomalous zones defined by air core drilling

(see ASX Announcement Drake Resources Ltd 7 May 2012)

Drilling to date has generally been shallow with some limited deeper RC testing below the air core drilling. A small number of RC holes have provided very good results however the density of drilling is very low averaging approximately one hole per 20 km².  A systematic program to ensure both deeper drilling under existing drill results and further shallow drilling on new targets is being planned.

Intersections in the Ghassariat Zone (see ASX Announcement Drake Resources Ltd 28 August 2012 and prepared under 2004 edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves) reported by the previous explorer include:

TGRC 022 - 71m @ 0.3 g/t Au including:

·     5m @ 1.2 g/t Au,

·     3m @ 1.0 g/t Au

·     11m @ 0.5 g/t Au

TGRC 007 - 38m @ 0.4 g/t Au including:

·     1m @ 6.1 g/t Au

·     6m @ 0.7 g/t Au

The exploration results reported in this announcement on the Tasiast South gold and base metals tenements granted to the Company were prepared and first disclosed under the JORC Code 2004.  The explorations results have not been updated since to comply with the JORC Code 2012 on the basis that the information has not materially changed since it was last reported

Aura is encouraged by the fact that these intersections occur within broad mineralised intervals, indicating there may be a substantial mineralised system, as opposed to narrow quartz veins. It should be noted that the nearest RC drill sections to these 2 holes are + 1km away. 

Figure 4:

Sections (all at same scale) comparing Aura's Ghassariat Prospect's broad zones of

sulphidic & gold alteration to the Tasiast gold mines alteration & mineralised shells

(See ASX Announcement Drake Resources Ltd 28 August 2012)

Aura's Chief Geologist, Neil Clifford, led the previous exploration in these areas, and has extensive and successful experience in international minerals discovery and deposit evaluation particularly in gold. He has played key roles in the discovery of at least 9 major mineral deposits in Australia, South America and Africa, for a variety of commodities including gold, uranium, copper and tin.  These discoveries have included +20 million ounces of gold, including Sunrise Dam, and seven have subsequently become mines.  He also played the lead role in the discovery of Aura's Tiris uranium deposits in Mauritania. He has been involved in West Africa since 2005.

"Interestingly the Tasiast gold mineralisation is in Archean greenstones with strong similarities in terms of rock types, structure and mineralisation style with the great gold provinces in the Archean greenstone belts of Australia and Canada in which there have been many hundreds of gold mines.  In the Tasiast district there is currently only one, reflecting how little explored this belt is (See Fig 5).  Clearly the potential for additional and substantial discoveries in the Tasiast district is very high as indicated in Figure 5", Mr Clifford said.

Figure 5:

Comparison highlighting the lack of major gold deposits discovered in the lightly explored Tasiast Province versus the well explored Yilgarn Province of Western Australia - both Archean Greenstone provinces of similar geology and age.

While the Taet permit lies in the same greenstone belt as the Tasiast mine, the Bella permit lies within the neighbouring Tijirit greenstone belt to the east and lies along strike from Algold Resources Ltd's Tijirit project with reported resources of 0.7 Moz gold, of which 0.4 Moz average 4.1 g/t gold (see Press Release Algold 10 April 2018 and the SGS 43-101 Report referred to in the Press Release). Mineralised structures at Tijirit extend into the Aura tenement where they remain almost untested.

Figure 6:

Portion of Tijirit Greenstone Belt showing Aura's Bella permit.

Results reported by Algold on the Tijirit project (see Press Releases Algold Resources Ltd 6 April 2017, 11 April 2018 and 21 June 2018) have been excellent and include:

·     T16RC071 - 6 m @ 39.9 g/t Au

·     T16RC070 - 3 m @ 30.0 g/t Au

·     T16RC045 - 5 m @ 6.64 g/t Au

·     T16RC035 - 7 m @ 3.20 g/t Au

·     T16RC024 - 6 m @ 4.23 g/t Au

·     T16RC083 - 2 m @ 5.47 g/t Au

·     T16RC027 - 6 m @ 16.4 g/t Au

·     T16RC031 - 6 m @ 9.64 g/t Au

·     T16RC024 - 6 m @ 4.23 g/t Au

Nickel and Battery Metal Potential

Previous exploration on these permit areas, while focussed primarily on gold, also located strongly anomalous nickel and cobalt values in several areas, associated with ultramafic rocks (see Fig 7).  In parts of the tenements high nickel values are associated with anomalous copper highlighting potential for nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation, as occurs also in the greenstone belts of Australia and Canada. At this stage there has been no follow-up work carried out on these nickel targets.

Figure 7:

Key nickel results in bedrock sampling by air-core drilling 

On a line of shallow vertical aircore drilling on Bella permit, with holes spaced 100m apart, aimed at sampling bedrock, very strong nickel values were encountered over entire 1.6 km drill line with every hole that went deep enough intersecting nickel values + 0.5%.

Figure 8:

Nickel intersections at Bella.  Red dots: RC holes, yellow dots: vertical AC.  All RC holes returned intersections of + 0.5% Ni.  (Background image is 1^st vertical derivative total mag intensity.  Note strongest magnetics (white zones) not tested)

Figure 9:

Nickel-copper anomalies in shallow drilling on Taet permit.  Background image is 1^st vertical derivative airborne magnetics. The pale zones within which the strongest nickel values lie reflect high magnetic intensity indicative of ultramafic rocks, probably komatiites.  A number of major nickel sulphide orebodies in better explored Archean greenstone belts occur in this type of rock (e.g. Kambalda in Western Australia).   (Blue lines show proposed bedrock drilling)

In addition to the high levels of nickel drilled, high levels of cobalt were also intersected on both the 1.6 km long drill line at Bella and on the Taet permits. Although sampling by the previous explorer for cobalt was sporadic with only approximately 1 in 10 samples assayed, 14 samples exceeded 0.1% Co, 6 samples > 0.25% Co and 3 samples > 0.5% Co:

Prospect Name	Hole ID	Easting	Northing	Depth From	Depth To	Interval	Co_%	Ni_ppm	Cu_ppm
BELLA	11HBAC031	466697	2219203	7	8	1	0.581	5300	488
TAET	12TGAC198	445378	2219429	24	28	4	0.484	9140	400
BELLA	11HBAC030	466598	2219199	16	17	1	0.445	4190	259
BELLA	11HBAC030	466598	2219199	17	18	1	0.357	3840	259
BELLA	11HBAC033	466900	2219203	9	10	1	0.273	3010	247
BELLA	11HBAC033	466900	2219203	10	11	1	0.260	5250	270
TAET	11TGAC013	444700	2218702	34	35	1	0.218	5650	354
BELLA	11HBAC031	466697	2219203	6	7	1	0.150	3090	276
BELLA	12HBRC007	467373	2219200	22	23	1	0.149	6530	114
BELLA	11HBAC030	466598	2219199	18	19	1	0.142	7770	238
BELLA	12HBAC073	463432	2217212	4	8	4	0.128	15	28.4
TAET	11TGAC033	431000	2212800	52	53	1	0.111	38	120
TAET	11TGAC053	430997	2210803	53	54	1	0.103	11	31
BELLA	11HBAC033	466900	2219203	11	12	1	0.102	5110	208

Figure 10

Sourced from data available to the Company

Future Work Program and Other Opportunities

Next technical steps envisaged at Tasiast South are:

·     Ground electrical geophysics to locate the strongest zones of disseminated sulphide development to assist drill targeting

·     Additional bedrock sampling by air-core or auger-drilling to better define the high nickel ultramafics and zones of copper/nickel for follow up drilling

·     Systematic drilling and deep drill testing (RC and DD) of targets defined

For more information please visit www.auraenergy.com.au or contact the following:

Aura Energy Limited Peter Reeve (Executive Chairman)	Telephone: [phone] [e-mail]
WH Ireland Limited Adrian Hadden James Sinclair-Ford	Telephone: [phone]
Yellow Jersey PR Limited Felicity Winkles Joe Burgess	Telephone: [phone]

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014.

Competent Person

The Competent Person for references in this announcement in relation exploration results and potential at the Tasiast South gold and base metals project is Mr Neil Clifford.  Mr Clifford conducted field exploration programmes for Drake Resources Ltd whilst it conducted gold exploration in Mauritania and has visited other gold properties in the Tasiast region.  Mr Clifford has sufficient experience that is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he performed for the previous holder of the tenements granted to the Company.  This qualifies Mr Clifford as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves'. Mr Clifford is an independent consultant to Aura Energy Limited.   Mr Clifford is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). Mr Clifford consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on his information in the form and context in which it appears.

 

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