Aurum Resources has named well-regarded international mining executive Dr Caigen Wang as its managing director.
The appointment comes at a time when Aurum is accelerating activities at its recently-acquired Boundiali gold project in Côte d’Ivoire.
Dr Wang brings significant West African mining experience and a successful track record in generating returns for shareholders to this new role.
He is particularly well known for its “discovery-to-mine” success as a founder of Tietto Minerals in 2010.
During his time with Tietto, Dr Wang led the company’s ASX listing as an explorer with a valuation of around $30 million to its current market capitalisation of circa $700m reflecting it being Africa’s newest gold producer with forecast output of over 200,000 ounces per annum from its Abujar Gold Mine in Côte D’Ivoire.
Dr Wang’s successful creation of Tietto followed a long career as a mining engineer and mine manager in Australia, Canada and China.
Prior to that he was a lecturer and associate professor at the China University of Mining and Technology and spent six years as research fellow/associate at the Western Australian School of Mines and University of Alberta, Canada.
Fast start at Boundiali
Dr Wang’s expertise will be of particular value with Aurum’s exploration of the Boundiali gold project.
The company recently received promising assay results from its maiden Boundiali drilling program after successfully completing the acquisition of Côte d’Ivoire mining specialist PlusOr Global.
The acquisition of PlusOr included the rights to earn an interest in exploration permits covering Boundiali and a suite of mine development assets including two man-portable hydraulic diamond drilling (DD) rigs and various consumables.
Early drilling success
Having access to the two Aurum-owned DD rigs has already proved valuable, with promising early results from the inaugural drill program at Boundiali’s BM tenement.
Assay results from the first eight holes in its inaugural 31-hole DD campaign at the BM tenement have shown evidence of wide gold mineralisation at multiple targets of shallow oxidised material from surface as well as into fresh rock.
The 4,876.9m scout drilling campaign was conducted under extensive artisanal workings.
Highlight results included 16m at 1.24 grams per tonne gold from 117m including 6m at 2.44g/t gold from 127m and 16.3m at 1.02g/t gold from 86.7m including 8m at 1.71g/t gold from 95m.
Gold mineralisation remains open at these prospects and planning for the further drilling required to test the known limits on these targets is underway.
The two DD rigs are now planned to continuously drill at a planned rate of 2,600m per month during 2024.
The right neighbourhood
The Boundiali gold project is comprised of two neighbouring exploration tenements and a 51-hole DD program for 7,145m is underway on the BD tenement neighbouring the BM site.
Boundiali is located within the same greenstone belt as the 11.5Moz Syama and 1Moz Sissingue gold mines to the north, the 5Moz Tongon to the north-east and Montage Gold’s 4.5Moz Koné project located to the south.
