Okote Gold Project
The Okote Project is a gold project in Oromia, Ethiopia’s most populous region.
The Okote Project is situated in the southwest section of the Arabian-Nubian Shield, specifically within the Adola Belt. It lies along the same shear zone as the Lega Dembi and Sakaro gold mines – Ethiopia’s only primary gold mines.
Ethiopia | Okote Project Location
The Okote Gold Project is made up of two exploration licence areas, Dawa and Dima. The Dawa’s exploration licence covers an area of approximately 42.83 km2, and Dima’s exploration licence covers an area of approximately 371.41 km2, enveloping Dawa.
The Okote Gold Project is a late-stage pre-development project, that has the potential to be a low operating cost, long life operation, producing over 135,000 oz of gold annually. Drilling has confirmed a large-scale gold system with a strike length of 2.6 km, open in both directions and down dip.
A substantial exploration campaign has been undertaken, with a total exploration expenditure to date of US$25 million.
- Drilling has confirmed a large-scale gold system with a strike length of 2.6 km, open in both directions and down dip. Previous technical studies confirm robust economics for a large-scale open pit mining operation with extremely low stripping ratios. Initial metallurgical test work supports the free milling gold mineralisation.
- The Maiden JORC compliant Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate is 7.7 million tonnes at 2.8 g/t for 700,000 oz of gold.
A 14,000 m drilling program for the Okote Project is proposed. This drilling program is designed to upgrade and enhance the status of the present JORC compliant resource and progress the Okote Project to feasibility status.
Presently the Okote Project is defined over a strike length of some 800 m. It is proposed that the drilling program will not only serve to “infill”, but also test the continuity of the mineralisation, both along strike and at depth with a view to increasing the overall size of the resource.
