LONDON (Alliance News) - Kefi Minerals PLC shares rose on Thursday after it said the test results from three prospects in the adjacent exploration licences to the company's Tulu Kapi project in Ethiopia indicate the company could double the project's existing ore reserve.
Kefi shares were up 8.2% to 0.920 pence per share on Thursday morning.
The gold mineralisation identified from the test results over the three targets adjacent to the 1.0 million gold ounce Tulu Kapi project could potentially provide satellite feed to the central processing plant at Tulu Kapi or be developed as standalone heap leach projects, said the company.
"Kefi is now beginning to explore the potential in the adjacent licence areas. Encouraging trenching results indicate deposits with gold mineralisation," it said.
The three adjacent prospects tested were the Komoto 1, Komoto 2 and Soyoma. Two parallel shear zones immediately west of Tulu Kapi, the Komto-Guji Shear, part of Komoto, and the Bila-Gulliso Shear, part of Soyoma, are host to "a number of gold prospects" that have similar geology to Tulu Kapi.
The Komoto prospects produced intercepts including 7 metres at 7.27 grammes of gold per tonne, 13 metres at 1.07 grammes of gold per tonne, and 6 metres at 1.24 grammes per tonne.
The Soyoma prospect produced wide-spaced trench sampling results of 14.2 metres at 8.2 grammes per tonne and individual vein results of 3 metres at 4.2 grammes, 2 metres at 2.75 grammes and 1 metre at 1.65 grammes.
Indicated resources have been reported for the zone underneath the planned open pit, where exploration is taking place, and pre-resource mineralisation has been quantified for shallow mineralisation in the adjacent licences.
"In aggregate, these relatively untested zones provide sufficient scope to target, over the longer term, a doubling of the existing 1 million ore reserve at Tulu Kapi," said the company.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Kefi Gold & Copper (KEFI)