Altus Strategies (AIM:ALT ) said 5,000m of trenching is underway at its Laboum gold project in northern Cameroon which it said will test the hard rock potential of several key prospects at the project ahead of the company’s maiden drilling programme planned for next year. 

The 189km2 Laboum exploration licence, located in the northeast of Cameroon, is held by Auramin Ltd, the Company's 99% owned Cameroon focused gold exploration subsidiary. 

The mining royalty company said it has commenced a systematic reconnaissance trenching and sampling programme, with 13 trenches totalling approximately 5,000m being planned. 

The trenches, which will be between 50m and 500m in length and excavated to bedrock anticipated at between 1.0m and 1.5m depth, are orientated perpendicular to the general north-easterly trend of the Laboum shear zone and associated gold-in-soil anomalies.  

Altus said the walls of the trenches will be geologically mapped and then channel sampled. 

Picture above: location of the planned trenches, source: Altus Strategies

As part of the current phase of exploration at Laboum, the Company explained how its field teams have discovered ‘a significant new array of quartz veins’ at the Tapare prospect.  

Shares in Altus Strategies have increased by more than 70% since late July 2020 and opened this morning at 56.5p. 

The discovery comprises 21 quartz veins hosted in metasiltstone and metagreywacke formations, ranging from between 10m to 345m in length, within a 150m wide zone. 

A total of 141 reconnaissance samples have been collected as part of the current field programme at Laboum of which 27 samples were collected from the Tapare discovery, including vein samples which returned grades of up to 36.20 g/t gold and 1.13 g/t gold. 

Picture above is the location of the Laboum gold project in Cameroon, source: Altus Strategies 

Commenting on the Laboum gold project, Steven Poulton, Chief Executive of Altus, said: 

“Altus recently discovered a quartz vein array at the Tapare prospect, which has returned a highest grade of 36.20 g/t Au from rock chip sampling. Previous sampling of sheared metasediments rocks at the Landou Prospect has returned a best grade of 6.86 g/t Au.” 

To date, Altus’ exploration, which has included high density stream, soil and geophysical surveys, has identified four priority gold prospects, of between 1.6km and 7.0km in length; The Landou Prospect, The Kalardje Prospect, The Tapare Prospect and The Rey Prospect. 

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