The playbook — gold · November 2, 2026
Fortuna's maiden Kabewest holes return broad gold in Senegal
64 metres at 1.9 g/t gold in a first drill pass on newly bought Bambadji ground, with mineralization traced over 600 metres of strike from surface to at least 49 metres depth.
Fortuna Mining drilled its first holes into Kabewest, a target on the Bambadji ground in Senegal it bought from Barrick and IAMGOLD, and the rock came back carrying gold. The headline number: hole FBRC0008 cut 1.9 grams of gold per tonne over an estimated true width of 64 metres — that’s nearly two grams in every tonne of rock across a band 64 metres thick — starting 19 metres down. Inside that run sat a 1.5-metre sliver grading 16.3 g/t. Other holes told a similar story: 3.2 g/t over 24 metres from surface, 3.1 g/t over 24.2 metres from 4 metres down.
What makes this more than one lucky hole is the repetition. Broad intervals of one to three grams over 20 to 64 metres show up in at least seven holes, and the company says the mineralization now traces over 600 metres of strike, open along strike and at depth — one hole, FBDD0006, still returned 29.5 metres at 1.8 g/t from 393 metres down the hole. The headline interval sits shallow, roughly 14.6 to 49.8 metres below surface. The breccia-hosted style matches the nearby Diamba Sud deposit, the feasibility-stage project Fortuna has floated as a possible plant site. Ganoza, who co-founded the company in 2005 and took its Séguéla mine in Côte d’Ivoire from greenfield to first gold, is running this with about $380 million net cash and no new financing attached. Over the past three months the stock added 0.3% while gold fell 3.3% — but it landed right on top of the junior gold index at 0.2%, so this is sector tide, not a company-specific move.
Now the honesty. Only about 70% of the program’s assays are in; 30% are still outstanding and could shift the picture. Grades are moderate — the value here rides on width, not tenor. Several holes (FBDD0005, FBDD0009, FBDD0010) flagged core or sample loss, which can bruise grade reliability locally. No cut-off grade or compositing rules were stated, and the Qualified Person, Paul Weedon, is a Fortuna employee rather than independent. There is no resource yet. The company says the balance of assays arrives in coming weeks and an initial Inferred resource is planned for Q1 2027; six rigs are now turning at the Wari and Latifa prospects.