Aurum drilling delivers 155 g/t gold hit at Côte d’Ivoire’s Boundiali

[SMM Gold Flash] Lake Victoria Gold reported new metallurgical testwork for weathered ore at Area C of its fully permitted Imwelo Gold Project in Tanzania. Attrition scrubbing followed by desliming increased 24-hour gold extraction from 49.99% to 84.54% in agitated-leach testing. Bottle-roll recovery reached 88.15% after pretreatment, while gravity-recoverable gold also increased. The work was conducted by Nesch Mintech Tanzania in Mwanza. The company has identified attrition scrubbing and desliming as the preferred pretreatment route for further optimisation of the clay-rich near-surface material. Lake Victoria Gold says the results complement earlier work on deeper material, where recoveries of approximately 96–97% were reported. Importantly, the reported recoveries relate to tested pretreated fractions and do not yet represent overall whole-ore plant recovery; further mass-balance and optimisation work is planned.

[SMM Gold & PGM Flash] A new study published in the Journal of Commodity Markets finds that platinum has exhibited broader and more persistent co-movement with inflation and real interest rates than gold. Researchers Arusha Cooray and İbrahim Özmen examined monthly data from July 1999 through December 2024 across the US, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, using turning-point analysis, wavelet coherence and time-varying Granger-causality methods. The study found gold’s macroeconomic relationships were comparatively weaker and more fragmented, while platinum and silver showed broader synchronization, particularly in the US and Germany.​ The researchers attribute platinum’s stronger macroeconomic sensitivity in part to its substantial industrial exposure, meaning its price reflects not only monetary conditions but also manufacturing activity, investment and supply constraints. The findings do not establish platinum as a universally superior inflation hedge: the relationships varied across countries, periods and monetary-policy regimes. Instead, the study highlights a fundamental difference between the metals, with gold’s broader monetary and defensive role producing a different response to inflation and real-rate conditions.

[SMM Gold Flash] Cora Gold reported that fieldwork and three-dimensional plant modelling for front-end engineering design at its Sanankoro project in Mali had been completed. It also completed compensation for 174 hectares required for the planned tailings facility and upgraded the exploration camp, while geotechnical work covered the proposed process-plant and power-station sites. Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) remains targeted for completion in the fourth quarter of 2026. These activities improve construction readiness but do not constitute construction approval: full development remains conditional on Mali granting the required mining permit. Cora previously secured a binding US$120 million gold-stream facility, subsequently amended to permit partial replacement by senior debt.