Lake Victoria Gold Ltd. (TSXV:LVG) (OTCQB:LVGLF) (FSE:E1K) reported high-grade, near-surface gold intercepts from drilling at its Imwelo Gold Project in Tanzania, adding new data to the company’s ongoing work to refine the project’s initial mining area and processing plans.
The latest drilling at Area C, the planned initial open-pit area, returned 28.71 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 2.75 metres from 21 metres in hole IMWDR029. A second hole, IMWDR028, intersected 12.20 g/t gold over 4.50 metres from 32 metres.
Individual quartz-vein samples within those intervals returned much higher grades, including 142.90 g/t gold over 0.50 metres in IMWDR029 and 124.83 g/t over 0.40 metres in IMWDR028.
The results are from eight HQ diamond drill holes covering 225 metres across roughly 240 metres of strike in Area C. Four holes encountered voids associated with historical artisanal mining, where parts of the shallow mineralized zone had already been removed.
The company said the drilling will help refine detailed mine planning and future grade-control work. Reported intercepts are down-hole lengths, and true widths have not yet been established.
Focus Shifts to Weathered Ore Processing
At the same time, Lake Victoria Gold is testing how the weathered, clay-rich material near the surface should be processed.
Whole-core samples from the eight holes have been submitted to Nesch Mintech Tanzania Limited for metallurgical testing. The program will compare untreated material with ore subjected to washing and desliming, as well as attrition scrubbing followed by desliming.
Testing will assess gravity recovery and cyanide leaching under the different treatment conditions, along with grind-size sensitivity, size-by-assay characteristics, slurry rheology, settling behavior, density, and head grades.
The work is aimed at determining whether clay removal could improve processing performance and, if so, what front-end equipment and configuration would be required. The findings are expected to feed into the project’s process flowsheet and plant design.
The weathered zone in Area C can extend approximately 40 to 60 metres below the surface in places, according to the company. That makes its processing characteristics an important consideration for the early stages of a potential open-pit operation.
The latest program follows metallurgical testing announced in March 2026 that produced approximately 96% to 97% recoveries from transitional and fresh sulphide material using conventional gravity concentration and cyanide leaching. The new work is focused specifically on the shallower weathered material.
Area C Underpins Imwelo Development
Lake Victoria Gold is advancing Area C alongside mine-planning and site-development activities. The company said Phase 1 earthworks have begun, including access-road improvements and preparation of the plant-site footprint, while work on the site camp and supporting infrastructure is progressing.
Once the weathered-ore testing is complete, the company expects to select a preferred front-end treatment approach and incorporate the results into the process flowsheet and plant design.
Lake Victoria Gold also plans to continue grade-control drilling, finalize the Area C pit design and production schedule, and advance additional site development.
Imwelo is one of the company’s two principal gold assets in Tanzania. The other, the Tembo Gold Project, is located adjacent to Barrick Gold’s Bulyanhulu Mine and has more than 50,000 metres of drilling. Imwelo is located west of AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold Mine.
The company has positioned Imwelo as a near-term development opportunity, supported by historical JORC-compliant resource estimates and a 2021 pre-feasibility study. However, Lake Victoria Gold noted that those studies are not current under NI 43-101 and that it has not completed a feasibility study establishing Mineral Reserves with demonstrated economic and technical viability.
That distinction is important for investors. While the latest drilling provides additional evidence of near-surface gold mineralization at Area C, the reported intercepts do not by themselves establish the project’s economic viability or guarantee future production.
Lake Victoria Gold said the ongoing drilling, metallurgical testing, and mine-planning work are intended to address key technical considerations for the proposed Area C development as the company moves Imwelo toward its next stage.
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This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.