Egypt's ASEC Company for Mining (ASCOM) has said it had found two gold mining targets in an Ethiopian concession with enough tonnage and grade potential to suggest an economic discovery is possible.
ASCOM plans to start drilling on the 800-square-kilometre Asosa concession in Western Ethiopia in October, it said in a statement late Sunday.
The company, 39-percent owned by Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital, also said preliminary satellite investigations had identified "numerous" exploration targets in its 3,000-square-kilometre concession in Sudan.
ASCOM has mining and other operations in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Algeria in addition to Ethiopia and Sudan.
