Africa-focused Alecto Minerals (LON:ALO) is developing the Kossanto gold project in Mali and is partnered with Centamin on two prospective gold exploration licences in Ethiopia. Alecto’s chief executive Mark Jones explains the appeal of both projects to Proactive’s Nigel Roberts.
PI : How is the Ethiopian gold project progressing?
Mark Jones: It’s been going very well. Joint venturing it with Centamin has been critical.
PI: What’s the potential here?
MJ: The potential, of course, is to unlock a significant resource, which will move into production over a period of time.
We delivered to the joint venture drill-ready targets at Wayu Boda in the south.
The Aysid-Meketel was more greenfield exploration and this announcement is confirmation that Centamin have done sufficient work in Aysid-Meketel to confirm that they like the ground and want to go to the next level.
We've also had confirmation from Centamin that they’ve drilled in excess of 2,500m at Wayu Boda, and from a geological point of view, all the holes have hit good structures, indicating opportunity for mineralisation and hopefully, when the assays come back, something to crow about.
PI: Are you prepared to give any indication of the timescale of what’s going to happen next?
MJ: We don’t manage the joint venture; the benefit to our company is that we don’t have to pay, so we get all the upside without any of the potential exposure. Equally, we don’t have the management of it, so we are totally in the hands of Centamin.
I’d like to think that by the end of July we’d have information, but let me make it clear it’s not in my behest to specifically state what or where; I’m at the hand of Centamin, who are highly professional and do a proper job. I’m very happy with what they’re doing, but I just don’t have any control on it.
PI: What’s the appeal for you of Ethiopia?
MJ: Ethiopia has been producing gold for literally thousands of years; it was historically a place where the Egyptians got much of their gold.
There’s only one producing gold mine, Lega Dembi, run by a private company called Midroc Gold. The opportunity for systematic, proper, high-quality exploration to unlock all the areas which other potential goldmines can come from has been key.
We have this lovely ground but it was 3,000 sq km, it’s not something you can do with a small balance sheet.
The potential for there to be other Lega Dembis is very real and that’s also the reason why Centamin likes the Nubian Shield, likes Ethiopia and is very keen on this joint venture.
PI: What about Mali and the operations there?
MJ: Mali is our biggest operational focus, because we manage that from our own balance sheet.
We have the Kossanto block, which historically has had a lot of work done on the eastern flank, which is the Gourbassi opportunity.
We have two areas, east and west, close enough to be realistically seen as one project, and we announced in April that we’d got just under 200,000 ounces of gold there.
We also announced subsequently that on the western flank, where there are two separate parts of the resource, the in-fill drilling was looking good and I have high hopes that we’ll be able to close that gap and announce an updated resource shortly.
On our western flank we have Massakama, which has always been a geologist’s delight.
It is a conundrum and it means that we need to think very carefully as how we play it, but we’ve had a well-respected structural geologist there for three months continuously and his view is that Massakama will be drill-ready in the next season.
Unlocking that opportunity is something which we’re keen to do.