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Gold exploration companies drill hundreds of holes before one truly changes the story they can tell investors. Awalé Resources Limited (OTCQX: AWLRF, TSXV: ARIC), a Canadian based mineral exploration company working in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa, appears to have found one of those holes at its Odienné Project. A single one metre section from a hole drilled beneath the existing BBM open pit returned 43.68 grams per tonne of gold equivalent, the richest interval the company has recorded at BBM since drilling there began.
The result came from the first two holes of a much larger, twelve hole program aimed at a specific question. Awalé’s geologists believe the high grade core of the BBM deposit does not stop where the current open pit resource ends. Instead, they think it continues downward and gets steeper as it goes, which would mean there is gold sitting below the pit that current mine plans do not yet account for. The first two holes, drilled to test that theory down to roughly 600 metres below surface, hit mineralization almost exactly where the company’s geological model predicted it would be.
Beyond the standout 43.68 gram intercept, one hole also returned 7 metres averaging 7.21 grams per tonne gold equivalent, while a second hole returned a much longer interval, 46 metres at 2.35 grams per tonne, including 17 metres at 3.41 grams per tonne. In mining terms, length and grade both matter. A short, extremely rich interval can prove a system exists, while a longer, moderately rich interval can suggest there is enough volume to eventually support a mine. Awalé appears to have found early evidence of both in the same pair of holes.
None of this confirms a new underground mine is coming. Ten more holes from this same program still need to be assayed, and the company has said results will arrive over the coming weeks. What these first two holes do is support the underlying geological theory well enough that Awalé plans to keep testing it, including a step out hole to the northwest aimed at a second mineralized shoot, and eventually deeper drilling meant to chase the system down to 800 metres. Andrew Chubb, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, described the results as confirmation that the deposit still has more to offer, and said the company looks forward to showing shareholders how the underground story develops as more assays come in.
Odienné itself is a large land package, covering 2,346 square kilometres across seven permits. A significant portion of that ground sits inside a joint venture with Newmont Ventures Limited, a subsidiary of Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM), which funds exploration there under an agreement signed in 2022. Awalé also controls a separate, wholly owned land position nearby, where it plans to report drilling soon at a target called Seydou and follow up work at an earlier discovery known as Fremen. The company currently has seven drill rigs operating across the district, a level of activity that suggests it is trying to advance several stories at once rather than waiting on any single result.
For a company whose existing resource base already stands at 1.71 million ounces of gold equivalent across three deposits, the value of these first two holes is less about the ounces themselves and more about what they suggest is still underground and untested. Mining companies live and die by whether a deposit keeps growing once the easy, near surface parts are mapped out. The early signs at BBM suggest this one might.
