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Alecto Minerals: Phase 3 at Wad Amour

Contributed by Fox-Davies Capital

Alecto Minerals has released the final set of results from its exploration campaign targeting Iron Oxide Copper Gold mineralisation at its 613km2 Wad Amour exploration licence in Mauritania.

Alecto commenced Phase 3 of the exploration programme at Wad Amour in September. The programme included ground magnetics, soil sampling, mapping and trenching, primarily to advance the Chiron target, but also to establish the prospectivity of the surrounding areas. In December the initial 234 samples from the 1,193m trenching programme were released and now on completion of the full programme the remaining results have been announced. The trenching returned results including 93.6m @ 0.11% copper including 1 m @ 0.7g/t gold, 54m @ 0.15% copper and 5m @ 0.33% copper from the Chiron target. These are good wide intersections and although the grades are low this was expected due to depletion of grade within the top of the weathering profile. The geophysical work was carried out by SRK who did an Electromagnetic ('EM') and magnetic surveys over the whole of the Chiron target. The data was then processed by Stewart Geophysics PTY. There is a large dolerite dyke visible on the license which is clearly visible as a NE striking feature in the magnetics data. In addition a major conductivity high lies between the two main mineralised ridges at Chiron, interpreted as resulting from sulphide mineralisation at depth as it coincides with a strong copper in soils anomaly, surface mineralisation and encouraging intersections in trenching. What is particularly interesting is the data clearly shows the main NW trending fabric and WNW trending structures that coincide with iron silica ridges.

Significantly the WNW trending structure ties in with the geochemistry and EM data and is visible from satellite imagery and ground magnetics. This is believed to relate to two of the earliest deformational phases (D1/D2) of the Pan African (tectono-thermal event), which were the main conduits for mineralisation at First Quantums Guelb Moghrein Cu-Au mine, which is 315km away along this trend and produced 35.3kt Cu Concentrate and 63Koz Au in 2011. In addition to Chiron, Alecto has identified three targets for further exploration at Tamourt, Morfuk and the untested Maghta Lahjar. Chiron itself is now ready to be drilled, but the Company may wait to carrying out an IP survey to verify the depth of mineralisation and better located the drilling programme. Given the results to date and the similarities with Guelb Moghrein, the company looking to find a large tonnage and believes the grade should improve with depth. Although the full work programme has yet to be announced, we expect the company to continue with its regional soil sampling and mapping work to test the rest of the license. Chiron is a very exciting project and although it is still very early stage, the latest results fit the current geological model for a Guelb Moghrein analogue. Overall, with the recent results from Ethiopia, Alecto has continued to build on the momentum it gained during the 2H'12 which hopefully the wider market will begin to appreciate.