TNM Drill Down: Collective Mining Traps top assay in Colombia

Our TNM Drill Down features highlights of the top gold assays from the April 19-26 period. Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by data company Mining Intelligence.

Projects in South America and West Africa took the week’s top assays. Collective Mining (TSX: CNL) led the results with its Trap target at the Guayabales project in western Colombia, and Filo Corp. (TSX: FIL) held second place with its Filo Del Sol project in Argentina.

Toubani Resources’ (ASX: TRE) Kobada project in Mali made it into the top three for the first time, after being in the top 10 twice previously this month.

Colombia

Collective Mining’s hole TRC-7A cut 632.2 metres grading 0.92 gram gold per tonne from 172.6 metres downhole for a width x grade value of 581.67, the company reported on April 24. Collective said TRC-7A is the best intercept drilled yet at Trap, averaging 693 grams gold-equivalent on a gram by metre basis.

The results from Trap are part of follow-up drilling at the original discovery holes the company announced in January. The precious metal-rich Trap porphyry system is located 3.5 km northeast of Collective’s flagship Apollo target.

The company said it’s possible the drilling has only touched the top of the porphyry system, with stronger mineralization potentially deeper down.  

Trap covers a 2-km by 2-km area and drilling so far has been from three drill pads, intersecting mineralization in several directions. The mineralized envelope now covers an area of up to 600 metres along strike, 250 metres across and 915 metres vertical, Collective said.

“Drill hole TRC-7A was oriented to drill at an orthogonal angle to the Trap system resulting in an outstanding bulk intercept of mineralization,” Ari Sussman, Collective’s executive chairman, said in a release. “We will remain aggressive with step-out drilling and in this regard, a new drill pad is planned in a location situated well south of current drilling.”

The assays from hole TRC-7A are part of Collective’s 40,000-metre drill program this year, with drilling ongoing at the Trap, Apollo, Olympus and Box targets at Guayabales.

Argentina

At Filo’s Filo del Sol in Argentina and Chile, hole FSDH103 cut 1,260 metres at 0.36 gram gold, from 296 metres downhole, for a width x grade value of 453.6, the company said in a release on April 22.  

The intersection went through the Aurora zone at the cross-border copper-gold-silver project.

FSDH103 cut across a zone of strong supergene enrichment, just below the prefeasibility resource pit shell, offering the potential for expansion of the oxide resource.

“With these initial results from our widely-spaced summer exploration holes we continue to see Filo grow as we search for the limits of the deposit,” Filo president and CEO Jamie Beck said.

The holes described in the news release span a continuously mineralized distance of 4.8 km from hole 102 in the southern Tamberias Zone to hole 108, which, Beck said has extended the Bonita Zone another 400 metres to the north.

The company is on its way to a record year for drilling, with 14,582 metres drilled in the first quarter and nine holes underway, Beck added.  

Filo del Sol hosts 432.6 million indicated tonnes grading 0.33 gram gold per tonne for 4.6 million oz. of gold, and 211.6 million inferred tonnes at 0.31 gram gold for 2.1 million gold oz., according to a January 2023 prefeasibility study.

Mali

At its Kobada project in southern Mali, Toubani Resources cut 19 metres at 20.6 grams gold from 105 metres depth, for a width x grade value of 391.4, the company said on April 22.

That uncut result in hole KBRC24_044 included 2 metres in a screen fire assay grading 178 grams gold.

The results were from the company’s resource definition drilling program that began in February, Toubani said.

Results from the first 43 holes of the program show the existence of shallow high-grade mineralization in those areas.

“Given the headline results which we have received, we will investigate the potential to define higher grade zones during our resource update work to complement the bulk mining approach of the broader deposit,” Toubani CEO Phil Russo said. Kobada hosts 60 million indicated tonnes grading 0.79 gram gold for 1.5 million oz. and 27 million inferred tonnes at 1.01 grams gold for 860,000 gold oz., according to a 2023 resource estimate.

On April 26, the company announced a A$4 million ($3.5 million) placement to be used towards further definition drilling, a resource update and the completion of a definitive feasibility study for Kobada.