---adds broker comment---
Nyota Minerals (LON:NYO, ASX:NYO) expects to publish a new JORC-compliant resource estimate for its Tulu Kapi gold prospect in the first quarter of 2012.
The group said approximately 4,300m of drilling was undertaken during November and December 2 with gold assays pending on approximately 5,800 drill samples.
Extensions to the North and Southwest of the current resource are being delineated, it added, while “excellent progress” is being made on the definitive feasibility study for the project.
Chief executive Richard Chase said: “The emphasis has clearly been on the Tulu Kapi DFS and resource estimation and upgrade, which remains on track in spite of the aggressive timetable that we are targeting. Good progress has also been made with exploration of the northern blocks.”
Tulu Kapi in Western Ethiopia is Nyota’s flagship project and currently has a JORC resource estimate of 1.46 million ounces of gold.
Today Nyota added that the drilling results clearly indicate that further extensions to Tulu Kapi remain and as a consequence additional drilling is planned.
Large areas within the current open pit outline also contain potential saprolitic mineralisation, which were not included in previous resource estimates, it said.
A programme to capture all outcropping and near-surface mineralised saprolite will be part of the DFS programme.
Phase 1 reverse circulation drilling has also been completed over the Guji Prospect, located 3 kilometres from the proposed Tulu Kapi plant site. A total of 17 holes have been drilled for a total of 710 metres.
Drilling at northern block Bendokoro has been put back a month to January because the wet season in the area continued until the end of November.
House broker Ocean Equities added that step out drilling at Tulu Kapi is proving to be very successful with more mineralised extensions to the main ore body being discovered.
“As Nyota continues to find more open pittable mineralised areas so the near term cash flow prospects of its Tulu Kapi mine improve,” it added.
Recently the geological model of the deposit changed to reveal an ore body that could perhaps be mined in two stages, a primary open pit and then an underground mine.
Ocean says it is still too early to say which way will be best to develop the ore body, but it is confident that the definitive feasibility study (DFS) will be strikingly different from the preliminary economic assessment produced on the ore body.
One problem Nyota is facing, says the broker, is that the time between drilling a target and receiving the assay test results is increasing.
Nyota has a lot of positive data news flow tied up in the analysis system, the broker says, but it expects a positive reaction to the news releases when they do appear, particularly from Guji and any grade data from the Northern Blocks.
Other catalysts are likely to be the receipt of the mining licence for Tulu Kapi and completion of the DFS, it adds.