Many Peaks uncovers deeper value as Ferké resource reaches 2.077Moz

Ouarigue resource reaches 2.077 million ounces

Many Peaks Minerals Limited (ASX:MPK) has added 754,000 ounces to the interim resource at its Ouarigue prospect in Côte d’Ivoire, taking the estimate to 34.6 million tonnes at 1.87 grams per tonne gold for 2.077 million ounces. That represents a 57% increase in contained gold in six months and confirms Ouarigue as the central development story within the Ferké Gold Project.

The estimate combines 1.108 million ounces within an open-pit constraint and 970,000 ounces within an underground mineable-stope outline. The latter is the more consequential change from the April resource: it captures deeper, higher-grade mineralisation beneath the revised pit shell, but is also predominantly Inferred and therefore carries less geological confidence than the shallow resource.

Deeper drilling drives the underground expansion

The update incorporates 63,866 metres across 286 diamond and reverse-circulation holes, including 59,918 metres completed by Many Peaks since 2025. The deeper component follows a run of drilling that extended the tested Ouarigue system beyond 900 metres, including the deep Ouarigue drilling that the company said would feed into an updated resource and combined open-pit and underground assessment.

Many Peaks says the mineralised intrusion remains open laterally and at depth. The open-pit portion averages 2,434 ounces per vertical metre down to about 438 metres, while the underground material averages more than 3,000 ounces per vertical metre over a 48-metre interval to approximately 690 metres. Below that depth, however, the resource becomes increasingly constrained by drilling data. The company is targeting further growth through step-out drilling and conversion of Inferred material.

Open-pit ounces decline as the model reaches deeper mineralisation

The headline growth needs to be read alongside a 16.3% reduction in the open-pit resource, equivalent to about 215,000 ounces. Many Peaks attributes the change primarily to revised reasonable-prospects assumptions, including flatter pit slopes, higher processing and general-and-administrative costs, and the addition of an underground scenario. Some ounces have effectively moved below the pit rather than disappeared from the overall estimate.

Confidence in the remaining open-pit inventory has improved on paper: 97% of its ounces are now in the Measured and Indicated categories, compared with 83% previously, and more than 63% sit in Measured resources. By contrast, the 754,000-ounce overall increase is predominantly Inferred, a distinction that will matter as the company attempts to convert the conceptual underground inventory into a mine plan.

Metallurgy remains a critical development test

Early metallurgical work is less tidy than the resource headline. Across eight variability composites, gold extraction ranged from 74.1% to 91.5% across the tested grind sizes, while a directly tested life-of-mine blend returned 75.0% extraction at the nominal P80 150-micron grind. Many Peaks has consequently used a provisional 85% recovery assumption for the resource, down from 90% in the April estimate.

There is potential upside, but it currently rests on limited evidence. One exploratory test on a fresh-rock composite increased extraction from 74.1% to 85.7% after lead nitrate was added, an improvement of 11.6 percentage points. That result has not yet been replicated across the other sulphide composites or the life-of-mine blend, and the company says further testing will examine reagent optimisation, longer leach times, pre-oxidation and finer grinding.

Scoping study sets the next valuation marker

Many Peaks is targeting completion of an integrated open-pit and underground scoping study by the end of Q4 2026, with feasibility study work planned for 2027. The open-pit work has been advanced to a pre-feasibility-level standard in several areas, while the underground assessment remains at scoping-study level because of limited drilling.

The company reported A$20 million in cash at 30 September and says it is funded for the scoping study and ongoing drilling. The next study will need to reconcile the resource’s stronger ounces-per-vertical-metre profile with recovery variability, a US$91.20 per tonne underground mining assumption, a US$23 per tonne processing and general-and-administrative cost assumption, royalties and the still largely Inferred nature of the underground inventory. The attractive resource geometry is now established; whether it can survive those economic filters is the more important question.