Discovery Metals Limited has reported ‘highly’ encouraging results from 6 diamond drill holes of a 12 hole programme at the Zeta North East Prospect which is situated within the company’s 100 percent owned Prospecting Licences in the Kalahari Copperbelt in north?west Botswana.
The Zeta North East Prospect is located in the Boseto Zone and is centered approximately 11 kilometres away from the 100 percent owned Boseto Copper Project’s concentrator.
The Boseto Copper Project is currently under construction and is scheduled to commence production in the first half of 2012.
Planned production is approximately 36,000 tonnes of copper and more than 1 million ounces of silver per annum over an initial evaluated mine life of 15 years.
Discovery Metals’ Managing Director, Brad Sampson, said the results confirm the existence of a potentially significant new zone of mineralisation located only 11 kilometres from the Boseto Concentrator.
”We have intersected copper and silver grades in this set of results that are higher than we have generally identified in the Boseto area,” said Sampson.
He, however, said this mineralisation does not currently form part of the Mineral Resources for the Boseto Copper Project and added ‘we now intend to progress the evaluation of this area as a priority so a JORC compliant Mineral Resource estimate can be prepared’.
“Discoveries like these demonstrate why we remain excited by the prospectivity of the Kalahari Copperbelt and the potential to find new Mineral Resources that can contribute to a larger, longer life Boseto Copper Project as well as new standalone projects.”
The drilling programme at Zeta North East is part of Discovery Metal’s regional exploration strategy.
The BSE listed company said it is committed to progressing exploration within the Boseto Zone to support both an extension of the current mine life and an increase in capacity of the Boseto concentrator.
Drilling is currently in progress at both the north?eastern and the south?western portions of the Mango Prospect within the Boseto Zone.
Separate exploration activity within the Mid Kalahari and South West Kalahari Zones is aimed at discovering Mineral Resources to support a second standalone processing facility.
Preparations are currently underway to commence an initial drilling programme at the Coeus and Gaia Targets within the Mid Kalahari Zone.
Discovery Metals initially drilled the Zeta North East Prospect in 2007 following up on results from three historic drill holes and identified copper silver mineralisation over a strike length of approximately two kilometres.
A review of near?mine prospects in mid?2011 highlighted Zeta North East as having potential to add to the Mineral Resources base for the Boseto Copper Project.
An additional 12 diamond drill holes have now been drilled at the Zeta North East Prospect completing a programme that commenced in August 2011 and the results of six of these holes.
These 12 holes were designed to intersect copper?silver mineralisation at depths of between 15 metres and 130 metres below surface along a strike length of approximately three kilometres.
The copper?silver mineralisation at Zeta North East remains open at depth.
All drill holes have intersected copper?silver mineralisation. The main sulphide minerals identified from geological logging of core are chalcocite and bornite.
Mineralisation intersected at Zeta North East has returned a number of high silver assay results, including drill hole GDDD1333 which returned an assay of 505 g/t Ag in a 0.8 m interval.
Examination of the drill core determined that silver in that particular interval is present as native silver hosted by a quartz?calcite vein.
The outstanding assay results from the Zeta North East drill programme are expected to be available in December 2011.
