NB: This article is written by Brand Comms contributor Will Schafer
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Kavango Resources (LSE:KAV) took a major step towards opening the door for joint venture partners at its flagship Kalahari Suture Zone (“KSZ”) project today.
In an update, the explorer released a comprehensive “Proof of Concept” report authored by industry veteran Richard Hornsey that concludes its drilling programme for the Botswana-based asset.
The company was not only able to provide geochemical proof of mineralising processes for magmatic nickel, copper, and platinum group elements (“PGEs”), but it was also able to identify previously unrecognised PGE potential at the south of its project.
The KSZ is a 450km-long anomaly in Botswana where Kavango is searching for nickel, copper, and PGE-rich orebodies across a land package spanning nearly 9,000km2. Signs of the project’s prospectivity are by no means new, with work previously outlining a number of highly prospective targets.
However, in today’s report, which follows a drilling campaign that concluded earlier this year, Kavango has been able to introduce new deposits that will allow it to vector towards the right host rocks and upgrade future targeting.
Not just that, but it has also been able to confirm it is using the appropriate geophysical technologies and data analysis techniques to isolate potential mineral-bearing targets in a scalable programme.
The company will now make Hornsey’s reports, of which there are three, available to potential joint venture partners and other parties interested in the KSZ project. A detailed executive summary can be viewed here.
As highlighted by CEO Ben Turney earlier today, the company Kavango has now completed “the most comprehensive and successful exploration programme ever” at the KSZ.
Indeed, the KSZ was first investigated by explorers back in the 1980s. However, the depth of sand, or “Kalahari cover”, overlying the project was so extreme it precluded further work. Using modern-day exploration techniques, Kavango is now mapping out and drilling the trend to an unprecedented degree.
“When Kavango first set out on this project it was purely conceptual in nature. Today, we have assembled a significant data set that validates the discovery potential,” said Turney.
“We are the first company to demonstrate that mineralising processes have occurred throughout the KSZ, based upon evidence of nickel, copper and PGE depletion and enrichment. This suggests there is a high likelihood that potentially economic magmatic mineralisation may exist, both within the Karoo and the Proterozoic Tshane Complex. The main questions to answer now are where and at what depth.”
Included in today’s report were recommendations for improvements to Kavango’s exploration programme. Using these, the company will now launch into two parallel streams of work.
One of these will focus on deploying CSAMT and TDEM surveys in the field to learn more about the “B conductors” it is preparing to drill. Meanwhile, the other will involve Kavango stepping up its efforts to search for JV partners, with today’s report representing a substantial piece of work that contextualises the KSZ based on the company exploration efforts to date.
As Turney states, this should enable the company to undertake “much more informed discussions with interested parties.”
Today’s report refers specifically to the “Norilsk-style” mineralisation Kavango is proving at the KSZ. Norilsk is located 2,800km northeast of Moscow and accounts for 90% of Russia’s nickel reserves, 55% of its copper and virtually all of its PGMs, and the company’s licences display a geological setting with some similarities to the project.
But it’s worth remembering that, beyond this Norilsk potential, the KSZ also offers a second mineralisation target type.
Indeed, Kavango’s drill holes over the KSZ’s Great Red Spot anomaly at the project appear to support a late 1990’s theory that the area could host a form of Iron Oxide-Copper-Gold, or “IOCG”, style mineralisation.
IOCG systems can host highly valuable copper, gold and uranium ores. The large size and relatively simple metallurgy can produce extremely profitable mines. Specifically, the Great Red Spot exhibits similar geophysical signatures to the world-renowned Olympic Dam IOCG ore deposit in Australia.
Kavango is currently investigating the KSZ’s IOCG potential by way of further AMT surveying and reporting ahead of drill testing.