Anglo, Pangea outline resource at Kahama

The Lake Victoria greenstone belts continue to reward exploration efforts, most recently at the Kahama property of Pangea Goldfields (TSE), under option to Anglo American.

A reverse-circulation program, just completed, has raised the total amount of drilling conducted on the project to just under 3,000 metres and, moreover, has indicated a possible resource of 650,000 oz. gold.

The mineralized zone, called Chocolate Reef, is at least 650 metres long with a width ranging up to 180 metres. The structure is open along and across strike, as well as at depth. The resource figure is based on an average depth of 100 metres.

The mineralization is held in a shear zone in a pyritic quartz-muscovite schist enclosed by granitic rocks. Soils in an area 1.2 km long by 0.5 km wide showed gold concentrations in excess of 0.05 gram gold per tonne.

The best result to come out of the recent drilling was a 42-metre intersection grading 6.2 grams gold, including a 16-metre interval of 13.3 grams. A 24-metre interval in another hole graded 5.2 grams and included 10 metres grading 9.5 grams. In a third hole, 64 metres grading 2.4 grams included 15 metres of 6.9-gram material. Other results ranged from 1 to 4 grams per tonne.

Another 4,000 metres of drilling are scheduled, first to test other parts of the Chocolate Reef and then to test the Village Reef, about 1.5 km to the west, where soils display a nickel-copper-gold anomaly overlying sheared, ultramafic rocks. The companies expect to have a prefeasibility study ready by April 1997, provided local regulatory hurdles are cleared quickly. Anglo, which can earn a 70% interest in the property by spending US$2 million on exploration and completing a bankable feasibility study, is financing the work and operating the project.

Pangea and South African mining house Randgold Resources have announced that the probable and possible resource on the Golden Ridge property, 50 km north of the Kahama, has been increased to 1.5 million oz. gold. Plans include 10,000 metres of drilling, which will allow a preliminary design for an open pit. Other prefeasibility work, including metallurgical testing and costing studies, is under way.

Pangea has also arranged an offering of 4.5 million special warrants at $5.60 per unit, resulting in gross proceeds of $25.2 million. Most of the funds will be used to develop Pangea’s Fenn-Gib project, east of Matheson, Ont., where a feasibility study should be finished by the end of the year. The remainder will be used for exploration expenses on properties in northern Ontario, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Peru.