AFRICA SPECIAL — Int’l Tournigan hunts for African elephants

International Tournigan (ITG-V) may be based in Vancouver, but the lion’s share of its operations are on the Dark Continent.

Although the company holds properties in Papua New Guinea and Stewart, B.C., most of its exploration budget is being spent in such West African countries as Ghana, Mali and Togo.

“Africa is elephant country,” says Martin Gallon, the company’s vice-president and chief operating officer. “Because title is granted from the government, you automatically get surface rights, as well as mineral rights.”

At the 219-sq.-km Diangounte West property in northwestern Mali, the company has discoverd 16 gold-bearing soil geochemical anomalies since 1994. The property is 25 km from the US$300-million open-pit mine being built by Anglo American on the Sadiola Hill deposit. The junior owns 80% of the Diangounte West concession, with the remainder held by the Malian government.

“I gave us seven years to build a mine,” says Edward Daem, the company’s president. “I think we’re going to do it — it’s getting exciting.” Surface sampling on Diangounte West provided the company with open-pit drill targets. “It seems we’ve been blessed by geophysics,” Daem adds.

Earlier exploration indicated that the property, which is on the border with Senegal, had potential for hosting at least one high-tonnage, low-grade, open-pit gold mine. Visible gold found in outcrops in two of four zones resulted in a drill program that is set to begin in late February.

Follow-up exploration consisted of soil sampling and chip sampling across exposed quartz vein stockwork ridges in metamorphosed sandstone.

Mineralization in the two main target zones — Grids 2B and 3 — show continuity over widths varying between 100 and 1,350 metres, and strike lengths of more than 3 km.

Grid 2B is on a major, northwest-southwest-trending shear zone in the central part of the property. Chip sampling on a 700-metre-long outcrop there returned uncut assay values of up to 37.5 grams gold.

In Ghana, the company has released year-end diamond drill results from its 50%-owned Riyadh concession. The four holes were part of a 31-hole program designed to test the continuity of mineralization in the 5050 zone, on the main “R” reef trend.

The 400-metre-long 5050 zone contain an estimated 2 million tonnes grading 5.3 grams to a depth of 100 metres (equivalent to 250,000 contained ounces).

There are three large anomalies, all of which have potential for hosting heap-leachable saprolite mineralization that is minable by open-pit methods, Daem says.

Drill results from the 5050 zone include: 1.49 metres grading 1.84 grams gold in hole 49; 2.66 metres of 3.17 grams in hole 50; 3.24 metres of 1.92 grams in hole 51; and 5.04 metres of 0.91 gram in hole 52.

The “R” reef has been traced by surface exploration for 4.5 km, and 21 holes drilled in 1996 tested the reef over a strike length of 2.5 km.

This year’s program will concentrate on infill drilling along the strike length in an attempt to prove up reserves of more than 1.2 million oz. More holes will delineate the continuity of the ore zone below the 100-metre level.

Exploration this year will attempt to delineate saprolitic material amenable to shallow, open-pit mining and heap-leach extraction. A surface program of geochemical sampling defined a target area 400 metres wide with a strike length exceeding 600 metres.

Tournigan expects to announce “significant” saprolitic resources by June, with a production decision projected by year-end.

In Togo, the company recently acquired two concessions covering 3,567 sq. km.

Acquired from Denver-based Orovi, the Nadoba and Kara concessions contain 22 gold and base metal anomalies.

“It’s a huge piece of ground,” says Gallon. “There are 13 targets — 12 gold and one platinum group metals.”

A reconnaissance mapping and sampling program to test the anomalies began in late January.

Gold mineralization occurs in quartz veins within metamorphosed sediments and volcanic rocks of the Togo series. There is geochemical evidence of alluvial gold deposits on the concessions, mainly in the beds of rivers washing over metamorphosed sediments of the Alcoran unit.

The company has received the official go-ahead from the government of Togo to explore for minerals, and it plans to spend $150,000 there this year.

Tournigan plans to raise $3.5 million in the short term to finance its African exploration programs.