Brian Benza
11 March 2008
Tri-listed Discovery Metals Limited has announced results from the latest 15 infill drill holes completed late in 2007 at its 100 percent owned Maun Copper Project.
The drillings are part of the pre-feasibility study being undertaken at the project's Zeta Prospect.
The company reported that the infill drilling at Zeta intersects further high-grade copper mineralisation. It has exceeded two percent copper with the resource now more than two kilometres in strike at shallow depth.
Discovery Metals' managing director, Brad Sampson said the results are very encouraging as they suggest that the copper-silver mineralisation in the centre of the Zeta Resource is both higher grade and thicker than previous drilling had indicated. "These results have again exceeded our expectations as they have further extended the greater than two percent copper high grade zone in the centre of the Zeta Resource to greater than two kilometres in strike at shallow depth," he added.
Discovery plans to progress to the bankable feasibility study stage by the middle of the year with a view to commencing mining at the Maun Copper Project as soon as possible to take advantage of the ever increasing mineral prices.
This year, Discovery and African Copper will become the two new players in the copper and nickel mining industry in Botswana alongside the established duo of Tati and BCL.
In May 2007, an inferred mineral resource of 1.3 percent was reported for the Zeta Prospect in accordance with the guidelines of the 2004 JORC code. Following the definition of this resource, Discovery commenced a pre-feasibility study of the Zeta Inferred Mineral Resource in August 2007. The aim was to determine whether the Zeta Resource could be profitably extracted via an open pit operation.
A key component of the Zeta pre-feasibility study was the drilling of 56 infill drill holes covering a strike length of 3.95km within the central section of the Zeta Mineral Resource. Previous studies had indicated that this section has the potential to be extracted through open pit methods.
"The infill drilling programme has concentrated on this section of the Zeta Mineral Resource. The infill drill holes were completed on predominantly 150m to 200m spaced sections. The cross sections confirm that the highest grade copper mineralisation occurs in close proximity to the sharp contact between the Footwall sandstone and grits and the Hangingwall siltstones and mudstones," explained Sampson. Last year, the company raised P57 million to complete pre-feasibility and feasibility studies on the exploration project.
The funds were raised from institutional and sophisticated investors in the United Kingdom, Australia and Botswana after a placement of 31.6 million shares.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
