Discovery Metals Limited is continuing its quest to build lasting minerals resources with its latest drilling results showing the thickest high grade copper-silver mineralisation discovered to date by the company.
The assays from 13 drill holes of a 37 hole programme in the central portion of the Mango Prospect (NE Mango2) makes it exciting development for expansion and development plans for the Boseto area.
Discovery Metals’ Managing Director, Brad Sampson said at NE Mango2 they have discovered the thickest, high grade mineralisation found to date in the Boseto area with most of the 13 holes returning wide zones of copper-silver mineralisation.
“We now have multiple areas of potentially economic high grade copper-silver mineralisation at Mango, and exploration has not yet tested the full prospective strike length of the Prospect which exceeds 30 kilometres,” said Sampson.
“This is a very exciting development for our expansion/development plans for the Boseto area,” he added.
The copper-silver mineralisation intersected over a total strike length exceeding 5 kilometres with high grade, thick copper-silver mineralisation intersected over a strike length of 2.5 kilometres within this zone.
Mango is within the company’s 100 percent owned prospecting licences in the Kalahari Copperbelt in north-west Botswana.
The Mango Prospect is located in the Boseto Zone and is less than 25 kilometres away from Boseto Copper Project.
The Boseto Copper Project is being commissioned, with the first copper-silver concentrate produced in June 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.
NE Mango2 is approximately 8 kilometres to the south west of NE Mango1 (Figure 3), and is on the same structure that hosts NE Mango1 and extends over a strike length of approximately 35 kilometres within the DML prospecting licences.
An initial Mineral Resource estimate for the NE Mango1 area is expected to be completed this month.
First exploration drilling results at NE Mango2 were reported in April 2012. An additional 37 diamond drill holes have now been completed along a strike length of approximately 5 kilometres intersecting copper-silver mineralisation to a depth of approximately 170 metres. The remaining 24 holes are expected to be available in Q4 2012.
These 13 holes are located close to the centre of the NE Mango2 Prospect. Copper-silver mineralisation within this portion of the Prospect is significantly thicker than is characteristic of the copper-silver mineralisation delineated by Discovery Metals to date in the Kalahari Copper Belt.
Copper-silver mineralisation at NE Mango2 is hosted within a massive limestone unit and occurs at the same stratigraphic level as the mineralisation at NE Mango1.
“Open pit potential could extend to depths in excess of 150 metres below surface. (The nearby Zeta open pit which has similar grade copper-silver mineralisation at approximately half the thickness reported to date from NE Mango2, is designed to be mined to a depth of approximately 150 metres),” said Discovery Metals.
“Tonnage potential for sulphide mineralisation between 70 metres and 170 metres depth, at an average of 20 metres thickness, is estimated at over 5Mt per kilometre of strike length.”
The company added that the underground mining potential below an open pit is indicated by the presence of higher grade zones within the mineralised area. Similar tonnage potential to that indicated for the potential open pit material exists for underground mining (per hundred vertical metres of depth per kilometre of strike).
