Cluff Gold boosts resource at Baomahun in Sierra Leone

A 7,000-metre drill program designed to test the underground potential of Cluff Gold‘s (CFG-T, CLF-L) flagship Baomahun deposit in Sierra Leone has bumped up the project’s total resource estimate by 40%.

According to the revised estimate, total measured and indicated resources now tally 12 million tonnes grading 2.9 grams gold per tonne for contained gold of 1.10 million ounces. Inferred resources now number 9.2 million tonnes grading 3.2 grams gold for contained gold of 957,000 ounces.

Baomahun is about 180 km east of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. The licence covers more than 12 km of prospective strike along the Kangari Hills, in the Southern Province, which is composed of Archaean greenstone belt terrain consisting of banded iron formation.

Cluff Gold’s management believes Baomahun’s geological setting is similar to the Lake Victoria Goldfields of Tanzania, which over the last twelve years have come to be recognized as a world-class gold province. (The Lake Victoria Goldfields host Barrick Gold’s (ABX-T, ABX-N) Bulyanhulu mine, AngloGold Ashanti‘s (AU-N, ANG-L) Geita mine, and Resolute Mining‘s (RSG-A) Golden Pride mine.)

In addition there is a geological relationship between the in-situ gold mineralization at Baomahun’s primary target, known as the Eastern zone, and the alluvial gold in the valley, the company believes. The slopes between the source and the valley have been worked by both local miners and medium scale operators in the past.

To the south of the project lies the village of Baomahun, where gold-bearing river alluvial deposits are still worked by small scale miners. The river deposits have been formed from the erosion of the primary gold targets in the hills above the river.

Cluff Gold began fieldwork in the area in 2005, completing an aeromagnetic survey that identified extensive banded iron formation. The majority of the prospective corridor is yet to be drill tested and the mineralization remains open at depth and along strike in the Eastern, Central and Western zones.

A scoping study is anticipated to be finished early next year based on the revised resource estimate, and will address whether the deposit can be operated as both an open pit and underground operation.

Cluff Gold has assembled a portfolio of mineral interests at various stages of development in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Mali.

It poured its first gold at the Kalsaka gold mine in Burkina Faso in October 2008 and at the Angovia gold mine in Cote d’Ivoire in March.

Total gold production at Kalsaka for the first six months of 2009 reached 26,772 ounces at a cash operating cost of US$595 per oz (US$632 per oz. including royalty and refining charges). The company forecasts full-year production at Kalsaka, about 150 km northwest of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, will be about 60,000 ounces.

Cluff Gold forecasts its Kalsaka and Angovia mines will together produce a total of 100,000 ounces of gold this year.