Kilo completes airborne survey, interim soil sampling at Somituri

Kilo Goldmines (CVE:KGL) Monday provided an update on its Somituri project in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), saying that it has completed a geophysical survey and interim soil sampling at the site.

The Canadian gold exploration company said that it had completed an airborne geophysical survey over the entire 122 square kilometre exploitation licence, PE9691, which hosts the Adumbi gold deposit of the Somituri project.

New Resolution Geophysics, based in South Africa, carried out the airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over PE9691, by helicopter, in mid April.

The survey consisted of 1,416.5 line kilometres flown at 100 metre intervals in order to orthogonally traverse the lithologies and gold bearing shear zones, said the company.

Kilo said the objective of the survey is, in part, to better define the structural and lithological settings of the known gold deposits hosted on the exploitation licence, and the on-strike extensions of these structures in areas where they have not been exposed or exploited.

In addition, the company said the magnetics can determine the presence of younger intrusive rocks, and cross-cutting structures that are typically associated with shear-hosted Archaean orogenic gold deposits as well as differentiate between the Banded Iron Formation (BIF), metasediments, volcanic and other rock types.

Kilo also reported that it had completed soil sampling and reconnaissance geological mapping on PE9692, PE138 and PE137, with soil sampling and reconnaissance geological mapping in progress on PE9695.

The company noted that the objective of this program is to delineate areas of anomalous gold values in soil, and ultimately define drill targets.

"Our expanded technical team has worked efficiently around the various concessions since January and has laid the groundwork for expanding the potential of the company's mineral portfolio,” said Kilo president and CEO Alex van Hoeken.

Earlier this month, the company unveiled what it called "encouraging" results from preliminary metallurgical test work on diamond drill core from its Adumbi gold deposit.

Overall recoveries were 94.2 percent for gold recovery in oxide and 96.2 percent for gold recovery in sulphide.

In mid-March, Kilo released an updated NI 43-101 resource estimate for its 71.25 percent-owned Adumbi deposit.

The company said in the inferred category, at a cut-off grade of 0.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, the resource estimate comprises 35.6 million tonnes containing 1.87 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 1.63 g/t gold. Of this, 33 percent is attributable to oxide, while 53 percent is attributable to sulphide.

Kilo has over 7,000 square kilometres of favourable Archaean Kabalian greenstone in the Kilo-Moto area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The company's principal focus is to advance its projects from exploration through feasibility to project development and ultimately to full production.

Kilo is also working on a number of other prospective areas which contain historical workings in the same region. It also has a joint venture with Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) on potential iron ore licences in north-eastern DRC.