The mineralised system at Namdini is on a large scale – the deposit has been intersected by drilling over a strike length of 1km, averages between 200-300m wide and has been traced to 350m vertical depth over the majority of the deposit.

The highest-grade intervals returned from drilling at Namdini to date were intersected in the final group of framework drilling, as part of establishing the maiden resource, and included 94m at 4.53g/t gold.

Managing director Archie Koimtsidis says Namdini keeps delivering (visible gold in drill core pictured below right).

“The maiden resource exceeded our expectations,” he said.

“To achieve 4 million ounces as a maiden resource is more than people expected.

“Significant scope remains with further drilling. The deposit is open up-dip, down-dip and along strike.

“We currently have four rigs on site drilling 24/7, focused on up-dip extension drilling.”

The Namdini Project is part of the company’s larger Bolgatanga project in northern Ghana.

The Bolgatanga project also contains the promising Ndongo, Kungongo and Bongo gold prospects; and the company is acquiring the 68.7sqkm Subranum gold project in south-west Ghana.

The West African-focused company prides itself on its in-country presence, giving it the ability to react daily to drilling results and oversee quality control of data and analysis.

Koimtsidis said Ghana’s political stability, well-developed mining code and under-explored regions made the country one of Africa’s most attractive mining investment countries.

“Namdini is well-located for future development and the project receives strong government and local landowner support,” he said.

Cardinal’s Ghana-based executive director Malik Easah said the mature jurisdiction was very supportive to operate in.

“It’s a stable country and the democratic poster child for Africa,” Easah told MiningNews.net on the sidelines of the company’s recent annual general meeting.

“I think Cardinal enjoys a very unique relationship because of its location in the north of the country – people would like to see a project established there.

“The support from people is almost overwhelming.”

Cardinal provided an update on preliminary metallurgical results this week ahead of an international analyst and fund manager visit, announcing flotation gold recoveries of 90% contained within 2% to 3% of the original rock mass.

Koimtsidis (pictured left) said flotation testwork indicated fast floating characteristics and an efficient “mass pull”, which achieved first stage flotation gold recoveries of 96% and second stage recoveries of 90%.

“The metallurgical results, while preliminary in nature, demonstrate the company has a number of attractive options to consider, but all involve a project that can utilise conventional carbon-in-leach processing technology,” he said.

Cardinal’s technical manager Dr Julian Barnes said the initial results were encouraging because the Namdini deposit was not low-grade from a metallurgical viewpoint.

“Once you are through the flotation circuit, it can be considered a very high-grade deposit,” he said. “After flotation, the mass of material requiring further processing is reduced to 2% to 3%.

“We can afford to do a lot to a potentially small daily tonnage like that, with a much smaller ‘back end’ of the plant.”

He added there were a wide range of additional options to increase gold recoveries from the current ‘base case’ of up to 76%, adding the ore was amenable to SAG milling.

“There are a lot of factors we will work on, each of which could add incremental percentage recovery,” Barnes said.

The natural progression will be to have a scoping study underway in coming months.

The company has altered its board composition as it moves to progress Namdini. It welcomed to the board Kevin Tomlinson, who has extensive experience developing and financing mining projects internationally, including directorships at Centamin, Medusa Mining and West African gold developer Orbis Gold.

“The board and management have a strong mix of technical, operational, commercial, strategy and governance skills, which positions the company in achieving its objective of becoming a gold producer,” Koimtsidis said.

"As the company grows, the focus is to expand the resource and develop the asset into production.

“This is what the world has been waiting for – a decent-sized baseline resource, that now needs to be optimised.”