Aton Resources has reported outstanding results from their Semna project with gold grades of up to 11.69 g/t Au, accompanied by 19.1 g/t Ag and 1.38% Cu over a 5.19m interval in their recent phase 2 diamond drilling programme at the Semna gold mine project.
TSX-listed Aton’s Semna gold mine is situated within the Abu Marawat Concession in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, approximately 27km east-northeast of the Hamama West deposit and 13km north-northeast of the Rodruin deposit.
The latest results are a major boost for the company, which is undertaking a three-part strategy to begin production at Abu Marawat while continuing an aggressive exploration programme. Aton plans to begin production at the Hamama project in 2026, and today’s results suggest Semna could not be far behind, with bumper grades pointing to an economically viable deposit.
Aton Resources counts London-listed Centamin as a neighbour. UK investors may be familiar with Centamin’s Sukari gold mine, which is forecast to produce 500,000 ounces of gold in 2024. Aton’s Abu Marawat Concession is approximately 200km north of Centamin’s mine.
For context, Aton Resources’s market cap is equivalent to £15m, compared to Centamin’s £1.5bn valuation.
Aton’s drilling programme, consisting of 28 diamond drill holes totalling 4,701m, was designed to test the Main Vein zone and its eastern extension. The results have confirmed the continuation of blind, high-grade gold mineralisation in the Main Vein zone eastern extension, which remains open at depth and along the strike.
“I am happy to now announce the final results from the recently completed phase 2 diamond drilling programme at Semna, which has continued to show excellent promise with more very significant drill intersections from the eastern extension of the previously mined Main Vein” said Tonno Vahk, CEO.
“The drilling has shown that the high grade mineralisation continues over a strike length of at least 500m, with good mineralisation drilled in the easternmost hole. As always a drill programme raises new questions, including an issue with one of the RC holes, and now is a suitable moment to review the data from the first two drill programmes.
“The presence of abundant coarse gold at Semna suggests that it is important to use as large diameter drill holes as possible, and we plan to return to Semna in the coming months, to continue with a combination of RC percussion and PQ size diamond drilling. However the most important thing is that the persistence of the high grade and coarse gold bearing mineralisation to the east of the old underground workings is quite clear. We are now well into the new diamond drilling programme at Abu Marawat and we are liking what we are seeing so far. We are also making progress at Hamama, with the establishment of Abu Marawat Gold Mines.”
