07:16 AM EDT, 10/10/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Orezone Gold Corporation ( ORZCF ) , which which saw its shares fall 6.5% yesterday, on Thursday provided initial drill results from its recently announced multi-year exploration campaign at its flagship Bombore gold mine.

A statement noted initial targeting of this program centered on the North Zone, with wide spaced drilling "successfully demonstrating the continuity of the mineralized system at depth, both in terms of grade and overall width".

Among Drill Highlights: ORE said Hole BBD1313 intersected 1.02 g/t Au over 57.00m, from 100m below the reserve pit; and Hole BBD1314 intersected 1.64 g/t Au over 46.00m, from 200m below the reserve pit. That included a sub-interval of 2.03 g/t Au over 22.00m.

Patrick Downey, President & CEO stated, "Over the past several months, the company has completed a detailed review of the Bombore exploration model, which highlighted significant exploration upside. This analysis was aided by a more recent structural review of the project, and ongoing detailed mapping and grade control drilling within the current oxide open pits.

"These first set of reported holes from our multi-year exploration campaign clearly shows that we have a robust exploration model, and highlights the significant exploration upside to Bombore's current stated global resource of 5.13 million gold ounces. The wide spaced nature of this initial targeting, and associated results, underscores the continuity of the mineralized system at depth within the North Zone, with mineralization now traced to a vertical depth of 340m, or 240m below the life of mine reserve pit.

"The initial drill results have positive implications in terms of materially extending the life of mine at Bombore and achieving the company's targeted long-term global resource base of 7 to 10 million gold ounces. This outlook is underscored by the fact that hole BBD1314 was only the 15th hole, across the project's greater than 14km long reserve defined strike length, to be drilled below a vertical depth of 300m. As such, we see outstanding exploration potential within the North Zone, and extending across the entire mineralized system at depth.

"Drilling continues at the next targets in the North Zone, and given the success of these first two holes, we plan to add a second drill rig to the ongoing program. The primary focus of this Phase I program will be on wide spaced drilling at depth, with the goal of illustrating the broader size, scale and potential of the Bombore system. As part of this drill program, we also plan to locally follow-up on a number of higher-grade intercepts, such as the recently released 113.74 g/t gold over 8.00m in the Siga Zone, which we believe with additional drilling may resolve into higher grade plunges and potentially support an underground mining scenario longer term.

"Overall, this is an exciting time for Orezone, both as we ramp-up exploration and discovery at Bombore, and continue to advance the hard rock expansion, which is set to increase production at Bombore by approximately 50% to a targeted 180,000oz per annum starting in 2026."

ORE fell $0.05 to $0.72 on the TSX yesterday.