B2Gold Corp. on Feb. 22 reported an initial resource estimate for the Toega deposit at its Kiaka gold project in Burkina Faso.

At a cutoff of 0.6 g/t of gold, the deposit hosts inferred resources containing 1.13 million ounces of gold within 17.5 million tonnes of ore grading 2.01 g/t, indicating open pit potential.

Mineralization has been defined along 1,200 meters of strike, with a width of 430 meters and a depth of up to 400 meters, and remains open along strike to the north-northeast and downdip.

The company noted that the estimate incorporates data from 165 drillholes totaling 37,776 meters and uses a pit shell based on a gold price of US$1,400/oz and an average 86.2% gold recovery rate.

B2Gold also reported that recent drilling intersected a potential new gold zone, returning a highlight of 22.2 meters grading 3.24 g/t of gold. Drilling is ongoing to infill and better define the Toega zone and to further test the new zone.