The TSX-V-listed company has been exploring exclusively in Burkina Faso since 2006 and holds the rights to 12 exploration permits covering 2 007 km2 of prospective Birimian greenstone belts. These permits form a pipeline of projects, which range from advanced to early stage exploration.
The company’s main project is the Ronguen gold deposit, on the Kongoussi 1 and Tikare permits, which are situated about 90 km north (by paved highway) of the capital Ouagadougou.
Between the deposit dis- covery in 2006 and early 2008, Goldrush completed 339 rotary air blast (RAB), reverse circulation (RC) and core holes totalling 19 600 m, and 2 273 m of trenching at Ronguen. This work led to an initial inferred gold resource of 249 000 oz of gold (5.9-million tons at a grade of 1.31 g/t gold).
Ronguen has been defined over an east-west strike of 1.7 km and lies within a 12-km-long deform-ation zone. It is open along strike and at depth below 80 m.
In January, the company reported that a total of 98 RC holes totalling 7 791 m and 18 core holes totalling 2 347 m had been completed in the fall 2011 drill programme on the Ronguen gold deposit. A total of 1 325 m of surface trenching in 13 trenches were under way.
A resource estimate update is expected by the end of the first quarter of 2012 and work on a preliminary economic assessment on the project is in progress.
Following completion of this phase of drilling at Ronguen, the drills will move to targets, including artisanal mining sites, located on other permits, and provide a steady flow of results well into 2012.
“Burkina Faso is one of the fastest-growing gold jurisdictions in Africa, with six new gold mines brought into production in the past four years,” says Goldrush Resources corporate development VP Don Willoughby. “This trend is expected to continue and Goldrush intends that its Ronguen deposit will be among the second wave of new mines to be developed.”
Other highly prospective targets have been identified at the company’s 244 km2 Ouavousse permit in central Burkina Faso. In early December, Goldrush announced that it had begun a 2 800 m RC drilling programme at Ouavousse following its investigations at four previously identified gold-bearing areas that confirmed the presence of prospective targets for follow-up exploration.
In November, the company started an RAB drilling programme at its Pompoi permit, contiguous with and to the east of Roxgold’s Yaramoko permit.