Minerals exploration company East Africa Metals will continue to explore highly prospective areas in the immediate vicinity of the Terakimti gold, Mato Bula gold/copper and Da Tambuk gold deposit areas, in Ethiopia.

This work will be concurrent with an ongoing development review and assessment at Terakimti, Mato Bula, and Da Tambuk. The full undertaking of this exploration will remain dependent upon additional financing being completed.

“East Africa’s management has established objectives to advance the company’s Ethiopia assets through exploration and development agendas,” says East Africa Metals CEO Andrew Lee Smith.

He explains that the exploration objectives are to increase and upgrade the resource along strike to depth, and through definition drilling, adding that development, once successfully executed, will continue to derisk the project as the company works towards its objective to establish operations and cash flow.

The company has maintained a steady multi-project advancement strategy over years of exploration, building value by drilling out key areas of mineralisation to establish core base assets.

The company indicates that the release of positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) results for the three projects provides a foothold for working to potentially improve and expand resources on the projects through additional systematic exploration.

Both Mato Bula and Da Tambuk lie along a geologically defined trend characterised by anomalous base and precious metal soil values, and prospective alteration similar to that in the deposit areas.

East Africa Metals further reports that the metallurgical test-work is currently being coordinated at metallurgical testwork and consulting services company Blue Coast Metallurgy, in British Columbia, in Canada, to facilitate a resource update primarily incorporating the 2017 diamond drill programme at Mato Bula.

Meanwhile, the company has recently released positive PEA results for the Terakimti gold heap leach project, which includes the oxide cap portion of the overall Terakimti volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) ore deposit.

Additional work warranted at Terakimti includes high-grade copper mineralisation delineation drilling, VMS mineralisation delineation drilling and downhole or deep electromagnetics to potentially identify additional targets at depth.

Mato Bula, Terakimti and Da Tambuk are located within 10 km of existing paved highways and the national power grid, and about 35 km from the town of Shire, which has an airport and extensive services. The Mato Bula and Da Tambuk projects are located 5 km apart and offer the opportunity to share access road and power line construction costs.

East Africa Metals believes the work and advancement on the projects completed to date display the significant mineral potential of this area, and also the accommodative Ethiopian regulatory environment that is facilitating the progress of the projects.