Cassidy cuts gold in Guinea (January 12, 2004)

Vancouver — A second phase of drilling by Cassidy Gold (CDY-V) has confirmed the high-grade nature of the Kouroussa property in Guinea, West Africa.

Last year, the Kamloops, B.C.-based junior tested three structural targets on the Koe Koe South zone, and this led to the discovery of two gold-bearing vein systems. Cassidy then drilled 11 more holes.

In the first round of drilling, holes 4-6 tested the SW vein, which is marked at surface by a northwest-trending, 500-metre-long trench dug by artisanal miners several centuries ago. The best results came from hole 4, which was collared in the centre of the vein trend and returned 16.87 grams gold per tonne over an estimated true width of 8 metres.

The mineralization is hosted in mafic metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks, apparently of Birimian age. Birimian lithologies host most of the major gold deposits of West Africa, including Obuasi, Sadiola and Siguiri.

In the more recent round of drilling, Cassidy sunk nine more holes into the vein, which has been named Sanu Filanan. Results are as follows:

— Holes 7-9 tested the mineralization cut in hole 4 but from the southwest side, down to depths of 150 metres. The holes failed to yield bonanza gold grades, and returned 1.56 grams gold over 3.2 metres (hole 7), 3.63 grams gold over 2.8 metres (hole 8), and 1.9 grams gold over 4.2 metres (hole 9).

— Hole 12, which was collared 90 metres northeast of hole 4, intersected 3.43 grams gold over 42.4 metres. Included was a higher-grade section averaging 19.7 grams gold over 3.5 metres.

— Hole 5 was drilled 40 metres southeast of hole 4 and cut 100.9 grams gold over 3.52 metres. Included in this section was a 0.69-metre interval yielding 372 grams gold.

— Moving 100 metres southeast, hole 6 yielded 9.16 grams gold over 3.24 metres.

— Holes 11 and 15 were drilled in between holes 5 and 6, returning 60 grams gold over 2.83 metres and 2.08 grams gold over 1.4 metres, respectively.

— Moving 110 metres southeast of hole 11, hole 10 returned 3.54 grams gold over 24.4 metres, including a higher-grade section running 15.34 grams gold over 3.53 metres.

— Holes 13 and 14 tested the Sanu Filanan trend some 150 and 330 metres northwest of hole 12 but returned only anomalous values of up to 0.55 gram gold over 10.6 metres.

— Hole 3 targeted the EW vein, now dubbed the Sanu Folo vein trend, where artisanal workings occur along a 500-metre east-west trend. The hole hit mineralized saprolite at 33.5 metres down-hole, yielding 7.07 grams gold per tonne over 1.9 metres.

— Hole 17 targeted the eastern end of the trend, yielding 7.1 grams gold over 1.9 metres in saprolite and 9.6 grams gold over 0.71 metre lower down the hole in sulphide material.

— Some 1.2 km east northeast of the Sanu Filanan vein trend, hole 16 tested the Koe Koe River prospect but failed to return any significant values.

Cassidy will resume drilling these targets in the next few weeks, and launch a field program designed to define new prospects within the Sodyanfe soil anomaly, 1 km to the northwest. The gold-in-soil anomaly is defined by 213 samples collected on a 25-by-50-metre spaced grid. These samples yielded an average of 0.49 gram gold, with the best value returning 8.63 grams gold. The most promising values occur in the southern portion of the anomaly, where two lines averaged 1.06 grams gold over 450 metres and 0.92 gram gold over 250 metres.

The Kouroussa property lies 570 km east of the capital, Conakry, on a paved highway, some 27 km north of Semafo’s Kiniero mine. Previous operators collected some 2,776 soil samples over a 3.2-sq.-km portion of the property; the samples indicated three separate anomalies averaging 342 parts per billion gold.

Along with Semafo, Guinea’s two main gold producers are Ashanti Goldfields (ASL-N), Societe Ashanti de Guine (SAG), and Socit Minire de Dinguiraye (SMD).

SAG’s Siguiri mine is in the northeast, 800 km from Conakry. Production in 2001 amounted to 283,199 oz. gold, and reserves were pegged at 56.7 million tonnes grading 1.2 grams gold per tonne.

SMD, which is 85%-owned by Kenor ASA of Norway and 15% by the government of Guinea, operates the Lero-Karta mine in northern Guinea. Lero Karta produces more than 100,000 oz. gold per year from a heap-leach operation. Total resources stand at 15.1 million tonnes grading 2.4 grams gold. The company has also outlined an indicated and inferred resource of 32.6 million tonnes grading 1.4 grams gold at Fayalala, about 10 km away.

Semafo’s operation was officially opened in April 2002 at a cost of US$12.4 million. The Kiniero mine hosts a proven and probable reserve base of 866,000 tonnes grading 6.06 grams gold, plus a measured and indicated resource of 1.5 million tonnes grading 6.8 grams gold.