Etruscan ups resources in Mali

There’s more gold in the ground for Etruscan Resources (EET-T).

The Halifax-based company announced a 60% increase in measured and indicated resources at its Tabakoroni gold deposit in southern Mali.

Tabakoroni is part of the company’s Finkolo permit and the updated resource puts a total of 610,000 oz. of gold in the measured and indicated category. And while some of those ounces came out of the inferred, another 220,000 oz. were left in the inferred category.

In its last resource announcement from January of last year the Etruscan had just 382,000 oz. of gold outlined in the deposit as measured and indicated, with 364,000 oz. as inferred.

Using a 1 gram per tonne cutoff, the deposit now has 6.83 million tonnes of measured and indicated resource at 2.78 grams per tonne gold and a further 3.13 million tonnes of inferred resource at 2.18 grams per tonne gold.

Also of note was an announcment on July 22 that the company completed the sale of its interest in the Samira Hill Gold Mine in Niger to Semafo (SMF-T) for US$3 million and a 1.5% net smelter return royalty on any ounces produced over  the 750,000 oz. of threshold.

Semafo has been the operator of the Samira Hill Gold Mine since 2004 and has produced more than 340,000 ounces of gold in that time. 

Samira Hill was the entry point for Etruscan into West Africa and put it in a position where it was able to acquire its flagship Youga Gold mine located in nearby Burkina Faso. Youga went into production in July of last year and the company says money from the sale of its Samira Hill interest will go into optimizing Youga.

In Toronto on July 28 Etruscan shares were off 2% to 28¢ on 315,000 shares traded while Semafo shares were off 6% to $2.17 on 775,000 shares traded.