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geologists, engineers or mining contractors. You “They bring the right skills sets we need for the next stage of
don’t get that in Canada or the UK.” development, Adrian with his corporate expertise and Steve
Sarama has engaged Hartleys Ltd to advise with his experience in project development and construction.”
on the IPO process and it is obvious Dinning is The new board in place, Sarama undertook a small capital
looking forward to hitting the local market again raising on the TSX to tide it over until the ASX IPO and in
after nearly 20 years working with foreign entities. September announced a resource upgrade for its flagship
“We’ve never done much marketing in Australia Sanutura project in Burkina Faso.
so it should be like a new story coming into the Sanutura – which means gold bull in the local Douala language
market,” he said. “I’m heading to Kalgoorlie for – is the new name of Sarama’s combined South Hounde and
Diggers & Dealers for the first time in about 15 ThreeBee projects. Collectively they now boast a resource of
years and hopefully the timing is reasonable, and 43.6mt @ 1.4 g/t for 1.9 moz (inferred) and 9.4mt @ 1.9 g/t for
the listing will realign us with other ASX-listed 600,000oz (indicated), up from the 2016 resource of 2.1 moz.
companies in West Africa.” The upgrade also included an increase in oxide and transitional
The prospectus was still being prepared at the material to 200,000oz (indicated) and 700,000oz (inferred).
time of print, but Dinning expected the listing date Funds from the recent $C1.56 million capital raising will be
to be set for mid-November. applied to further exploration work at Sanutura with infill drilling
The IPO comes at a natural turning point for designed to increase the indicated component beyond 25% of
Sarama which is beginning to rebuild momentum the resource. The company is also planning extensional drilling
after several years of frustration. to expand the oxide-transitional ounces available.
“It is the start of a new story for the company “The ultimate aim is to reach 3 moz global resource in the next
in many ways,” Dinning said. “The board has update but we want to get to 1 moz of oxides and transitional
undergone a revamp in recent months with the which would be enough to justify looking at a CIL plant,” Dinning
two North American directors stepping down and said. “From there we can do a feasibility study on the oxides and
two Aussies, Steve Zannovich and Adrian Byass transitional.”
coming on. Sarama’s strategy is to define an economically viable project
based purely on oxide and transitional material before
considering sulphide production once established.
Sarama is preparing to start another round of drilling
following the West African wet season at its Sanutura “We will build the project, pay for it and make a return off the
project in Burkina Faso oxides alone, without the sulphides,” Dinning said. “We had
originally looked at a heap leach but a CIL plant is preferable.
You get 15% more ounces because of recoveries and it is a
plant which you can just press the button on and have gold
coming out the other end.”
Sarama also has regional targets on its 1,500sq km land
package at Sanutura, including the Bamako 2 prospect – where
a hit of 8m @ 18 g/t gold has not been followed up – and the
Bondi prospect which contains a non-JORC compliant resource
Dinning is eager to formalise.
“By taking in some of those areas where data is limited, we
believe we can get to 3 moz quickly and then we see how
successful we are on the drill bit at the other targets,” he said.
Delineation of several more deposits will allow the company
to deploy a central processing-satellite orebody strategy at
Sanutura.
“The Canadians struggle with the concept of a central plant with
trucking of ore from satellite deposits, but it happens all the time
in Western Australia,” Dinning said. “If you’ve got grade, you can
truck it. Australians understand that well.”
If that strategy is enacted, Sarama has a further enticing
opportunity in its sights.
Sanutura is directly adjacent to Endeavour Mining Corp’s Bantou
deposit, which contains an inferred resource of 51.1mt @ 1.37
g/t for 2.245 moz. The project was originally discovered by
Australian junior Orbis Gold but has fallen down the priority list
following takeovers by first Semafo of Orbis and most recently

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