African Aura Mining

July brings a new resource estimate from African Aura, which has obtained encouraging drilling results from Liberia's New Liberty gold deposit.

The AIM-quoted company, formerly Mano River, says its new ‘Latiff’ zone in the New Liberty deposit has yielded intersections ranging from 4.64 grammes of gold per-tonne-of-ore over 25 metres at 166-metres depth to 5.68 grammes-a-tonne over 18 metres at 70 metres depth. London-based African Aura, which is also quoted on the Toronto Venture Exchange, previously indicated an estimated gold resource at New Liberty of 1.38m oz at 3.18 grammes a tonne and analysts expect next month’s new estimate will show a significant increase.

Chief executive officer Luis da Silva says Latiff is open at depth and argues the zone’s discovery ‘can only enhance New Liberty’s open pit mining potential’, which would be notably cheaper than underground exploitation. Best known for its 38.5% holding in Liberia’s Putu iron ore project, holding an estimated 1 bn tonnes with 37% iron ore, the company is interested in several other gold prospects in Liberia and has a key stake in AIM-quoted gem producer Stellar Diamonds.

Recommended as Mano River at 10p on the initial Putu deal two years ago and more recently at 69.75p and 82.5p, African Aura shares have now reached 96p. There should be more to come for investors untroubled by the risks involved in Africa and mineral development.