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COVER

Perseverance predicts

discovery excellence

by Michael Washbourne

If the reward for persistence is one of West
Africa’s best gold discoveries in recent
memory, then Predictive Discovery Ltd is
a deserving winner of the GMJ Explorer of
the Year crown for 2021.

Predictive delivered a maiden resource estimate for Bankan just
17 months after the discovery hole

redictive spent more than a decade scouring the region for not revered for hosting large gold deposits.
P that elusive company-making project, turning over a series of Roberts said faith in a geological-based approach to exploration had
promising opportunities in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali in been one of the keys to striking it rich at Bankan.
search of that breakthrough find before eventually setting up camp
“I think the really gratifying thing about this discovery is that it actually
in Guinea in late 2018.
shows even a small company can do genuine geologically-based
Fast-forward to April 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 greenfields exploration and come up with huge success,” Roberts
pandemic and the “little explorer that could” finally hit the jackpot. told GMJ.
Shares in Predictive soared an incredible 733% – the biggest single-
“We spent more than a decade applying this approach, gathering
day rise on the ASX in the preceding three years – after the company
all of the publicly available information, doing the geophysical
reported a spectacular intersection of 46m @ 6.58 g/t gold (including
processing required, identifying interesting targets, picking up a lot
10m @ 26.52 g/t) at its Bankan project in Guinea.
of ground, assessing it, maybe farming it out to others but mostly
Predictive has not looked back since. Just 17 months after that assessing ourselves, and that has led to this discovery.”
discovery hole, the company delivered a maiden inferred resource
Equally critical for the company’s eventual success was the ability
of 72.8mt @ 1.56 g/t gold from 3.65 moz for Bankan, including high
to survive during lean periods in the market, especially without an
retention of contained ounces as the cut-off grade is lifted. Using a 1
obvious flagship project. This required Predictive to establish a
g/t cut-off grade, total ounces within the same resource models are
number of JVs while exploring in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire,
2.82 moz @ 2.29 g/t gold.
ensuring what few funds it did have in the kitty would only be invested
The announcement immediately drew comparisons to what is into those targets most likely to produce something which could
arguably the best gold discovery in West Africa in the past decade, deliver a return for the company’s patient shareholders.
Fekola in Mali. Discovered by Australian explorer Papillon Resources
“Survival is so important. Our original team was able to come all the
and later developed by B2Gold Corp, Fekola’s maiden resource
way through because we could survive. Sustaining a greenfields
contained 3.9 moz @ 1.7 g/t gold using a 0.5 g/t cut-off grade and 3.1
strategy for a period of time is critical to greenfields success, but a
moz @ 2.4 g/t gold using a 1 g/t cut-off.
lot of the time you just can’t sustain it because the market gets tired
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Predictive’s success is that of you,” Roberts said.
its core exploration team – managing director Paul Roberts and chief
“The key was being able to do it cheaply. We’ve operated quite
geologist Barry Murphy – have been with the company since its
cheaply for almost a decade – the first year or two wasn’t so cheap
inception in 2007. The pair were joined a decade later by principal
because we were focused on the IPO project in Burkina Faso but
geologist Aimé Nganare for the bold venture into Guinea, a country
after that we operated cheaply – we moved from country to country,
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