It's no secret that the gold price has been on a tear this year, and investors in the precious metal have made great returns.
But arguably the key to making serious money in the gold sector is to be able to identify a company which is in the exploration phase and getting good results which will at some stage turn into a gold mine.
The analysts at Macquarie have singled out Turaco Gold Ltd (ASX: TCG) as one such company, and it's not hard to see why.
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Strong quarterly results
Turaco, in its quarterly report released in recent days, said it continued to deliver "exceptional" results during the quarter, advancing exploration and feasibility programs across its portfolio in Côte d'Ivoire.
During the quarter the company was running five drill rigs at its flagship Afema project, completing more than 20,000m of drilling.
As the company said:
Drilling programs produced high-grade discoveries with Adiopan and Begnopan confirmed as additional deposits along the Afema shear, while new mineralised structures were identified at Woulo Woulo and Baffia.
During the quarter, the company also updated its mineral resource at the Afema project, which now stands at 102.9 million tonnes of ore at a grade of 1.2 grams of gold per tonne, for a total of 4.06 million ounces of contained gold.
Significantly, the updated mineral resource estimate does not include recent high-grade results from Adiopan, Herman, Baffia and Niamienlessa, highlighting the potential for continued near-term mineral resource estimate growth.
Continuing to impress
The Macquarie team noted that the recent resource upgrade was a half a million-ounce jump on the previously reported figure from just five months ago.
As they said:
Importantly, there was no change in overall grade while growth was also skewed to the indicated category, which is of high enough confidence for reserve estimation. The resource update was delivered on schedule and was a little above the 'circa-4 million ounces' we anticipated in our prior report.
The Macquarie team said Turaco had also flagged another resource update in early calendar 2026, which would be the basis for a prefeasibility study for a mine, with a definitive feasibility study to follow thereafter.
They went on to say:
All timelines are unchanged, and we retain our second half of 2028 first gold assumption. We suspect that the company could maintain the circa-100,000 ounces per month resource growth rate until the next resource update which implies Afema's resource could grow to about 4.5 million ounces.
The Macquarie analysts have a 12-month price target of 80 cents on Turaco shares compared with the closing price on Friday of 46 cents.
If achieved, this would constitute a return to shareholders of 75.8%.
