Arrow expands footprint around Burkina Faso gold discovery

ASX-listed gold explorer, Arrow Minerals has entered into a joint venture agreement with its neighbour in Burkina Faso and Vancouver-headquartered base metals miner, Trevali Mining that provides reciprocal exploration rights to each party’s tenements in the landlocked West African country.

Perth-based Arrow says the JV will allow it to carry out gold exploration activities across five of Trevali’s permits and Trevali to undertake base metals exploration on three of Arrow’s permits.

Under the terms of the JV, in the event Arrow defines a gold resource on Trevali’s properties, Trevali will assume a 51 per cent interest in the gold resource and should Trevali define a base metals resource on Arrow’s landholdings, Arrow will be entitled to a 51 per cent stake in it. Both parties have also agreed to share exploration data.

The two companies’ joint exploration area sits within the prolific Boromo greenstone belt that hosts the Batie West, Bissa and Poura gold mines along what Arrow calls a highly favourable auriferous structural corridor.

Within the pair’s 1,024-square-kilometre combined permit package, gold mineralisation occurs at the advanced Dassa, Divole East, Poa and Guido prospects.

This arrangement is transformative for Arrow Minerals and gives us access to over 80 kilometres of strike length along the highly prospective gold-bearing Boromo greenstone belt. This expanded exploration space greatly increases the probability of delivering significant additional gold to the developing Arrow portfolio of discoveries including Dassa and Divole East. At the same time, both companies retain exposure to exploration success in non-core minerals.

Previous work by Trevali and others along the length of the permits has highlighted areas of elevated prospectivity that Arrow intends to aggressively explore, commencing with a program of regional stream sediment sampling to start in March 2021.

Arrow recently completed a 4,000m RC follow-up drilling campaign at the near-surface Dassa gold discovery at its Divole West project. The company says assay results are expected early next month.

The latest program was aimed at infilling between previous widely spaced holes and testing for extensions of gold mineralisation to the north, south and down-dip to the east.

Notable intercepts from Arrow’s earlier drilling at Dassa have included 17m at an average grade of 3.3 grams per tonne gold from 2m, 33m going 1.9 g/t from 21m, 3m at 4.4 g/t from 98m, 2m at 4.9 g/t from 14m and 6m at 3.8 g/t from 117m.

Trevali owns 90 per cent of the nearby producing Perkoa underground zinc mine, which is located approximately 120km west of the Burkina Faso capital city, Ouagadougou. Perkoa has been in commercial operation since 2013 and currently produces a zinc concentrate.

According to management, the JV agreement with Trevali consolidates Arrow’s footprint surrounding the Dassa gold discovery on its Divole West permit and opens the door to significant exploration upside potential.

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