Altus Strategies plc said a strategic review has been completed of the company’s 97% owned high-grade Bikoula iron project in southern Cameroon.
The review was conducted by Mining Plus UK Ltd who looked at the processing, product specification, development and shipment options for the project’s development.
Bikoula hosts a deposit with a historic independent JORC compliant mineral resource estimate of 46 million tonnes at 44% iron.
Historical drilling includes 30.8m at 57.9% iron from 3.8m (potential true width of interval) but at least 75% of the 13km long priority target area remains untested.
Altus undertook systematic drilling and surface pitting over approximately 25% of the 13km long Libi Hills prospect.
This involved the completion of 48 diamond drill holes totalling some 3,900m with more than half the holes intersecting at least 20m of >40% iron.
Significant intersections (considered approximate true width) include:
- 57.8m @ 51.4% Fe (including 30.8m at 57.9% Fe, from 3.8m)
- 35.0m @ 55.9% Fe from 10.0m
- 28.3m @ 49.9% Fe from 15.0m
Prior metallurgical test-work yielded 62.26% iron concentrate using gravity separation.
Bikoula is located approximately 350km by road from recently completed containerised deep water port at Kribi.
Altus chief executive Steven Poulton said that other recent regional infrastructure work, including significant road improvements, were expected to benefit the project.
BIKOULA
The 194 km2 Bikoula project comprises the contiguous Bikoula and Ndjele exploration licences which are 99 km2 and 95 km2 in size respectively.
Both licences were selected based on the presence of a significant magnetic anomaly coincident with historically mapped banded iron ore formation (BIF).
The BIFs form the westerly strike extension of the Nkout iron deposit and are approximately 160 km northwest of the Mbalam iron deposit.
A high resolution airborne magnetic survey completed by the company has identified numerous priority drill targets.