In November 2021, Annamite Resources acquired a 70% stake in Lao Hyundae Blackstone Lao Co., Ltd (LHBS), the company with the exploration concession of the Sokdee copper-gold porphyry systems, located in Hinherb District, Vientiane Province. Annamite has a right to increase its shareholding of LHBS by additional funding. LHBS was granted 50 square kilometres of exploration and feasibility licenses in Hinherb and Fuang Districts, Vientiane Province. The villages of Namthom and Mouk are located on the southern border of the concession. LHBS has subsequently relinquish areas in Fuang District with now a 17.5 square kilometre feasibility license and a 19.2 square kilometre exploration license. Both licenses, totaling 37.7 square kilometres are valid until end March 2026.
Following due diligence in 2020-2021, exploration by Annamite on the Sokdee Tenement commenced in March 2022. Since then, fieldwork has continued there without interruption.
The first exploration campaign in March to August 2022 at the Namthom prospect, in the southern part of the tenement, consisted of soil geochemistry, drone magnetics and a scout drilling program of eight core (DD) holes, totaling 1,978m. Best results there were in hole NT22-003DD with 60m @ 0.22g/t Au, 0.41% Cu, 88ppm Mo from 24m. During the same campaign, high-grade quartz veins were discovered at Palm and Spine with intersections of 3m @ 9.2g/t Au, 49g/t Ag, 0.51% Cu from 64m in hole NT22-006DD and 2m @ 8.7g/t Au, 40g/t Ag, 0.29% Cu and 6.1% Zn from 32m in hole NT22-007DD, respectively. Regional soil sampling also better defined the north end of the Boundary target along the southern perimeter of Sokdee.
From September 2022 through April 2023, the team undertook infill soil sampling and an induced polarization (IP) survey consisting of six survey lines, to better understand the geometry and potential at Namthom. Systematic regional soil sampling and follow up infill sampling outlined the large, multielement Mouk target in the northern part of the tenement. An additional drone magnetics survey to the north of the previous one was completed in February 2023 over the Mouk and Mouk West targets.
The second exploration campaign started with trenching in March-April 2023 on the most promising peripheral anomalies at the eastern and northern parts of Namthom, ahead of any additional drilling. Four trenches totaling 665.3m were dug, returning 27.5m @ 0.1% Cu in GST23-001; and 90.2m @ 0.08g/t Au and 0.13% Cu in GST23-003. The 2023 Stage-1 drilling program included nine short reverse circulation percussion (RC) holes totaling 596m into the peripheral targets of Spine and Palm, returning 10m @ 1.34g/t Au from 0m, including 4m @ 3.06g/t Au from 2m in NT23-014RC; 8m @ 1.37g/t Au from 0m and 4m @ 0.89g/t Au from 55m in NT23-015RC; and 32m @ 0.81g/t Au from 0m, including 11m @ 2.04g/t Au from 23m, including 4m @ 5.09g/t from 25m in NT23-016RC.
Ahead of additional DD drilling by Rio Tinto, our partner at the time, a new IP survey was undertaken in June-July 2023 over the Namthom, Palm, Spine and Mouk targets followed by four holes for 1,496m in July-October 2023. Three tested Mouk and one tested the faulted east edge of Namthom but the program failed to clear Rio’s stringent hurdles.
Based on results to-date two alternatives on exploration could be envisaged:
- a shallow gold-dominant project of up to 1 Moz including an oxide component, which if proved up, could be fast-tracked to production within five years, and
- exploration and possible eventual mining of a much longer-term series of porphyry Cu-Au-Mo projects.
In 2023 Annamite extended its regional soils program into a 43 sq.km area applied for by LHBS and has received some encouraging results. The application there is still pending. Newly established gold alluvial workings in the east of the Sokdee concession have prompted Annamite to conduct a soil sampling program in the restricted catchment area.
For the first half of 2025, a drilling program of about 80 holes at a cost of roughly $1.9m has been planned on Sokdee primarily to explore the near-surface gold targets, with a far lesser quantity of meters aimed at testing porphyry-like targets. Negotiations on land access to drill sites is ongoing.
Some 1446 soil and 194 rock grab samples have been collected; four trenches totaling 665m were dug; and 21 holes drilled for a total of 4,065m. Since 2021, the Annamite spend on the concession is US$3.9 million to the end of Q1 2025.
In summary, exploration work to date on Sokdee has identified three Cu-Au-Mo porphyry-like centers (Mouk, Namthom and Boundary) with peripheral high-grade Au-Cu-Ag-Zn vein-hosted (epithermal?) targets (Spine and Palm).
