Exploration and development company Ivanplats says rapid and significant progress is being made at its two Tier 1 mineral projects in Africa.

The company is undertaking exploration work at the Kamoa copper project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Platreef platinum/nickel/ palladium/gold/copper/rhodium project in South Africa.

“Given the quality and quantity of mineralisation that we have discovered at the Kamoa and Platreef projects, they are attracting international interest from potential strategic partners.

“This is evidenced by the $280-million transaction with Japanese trading company Itochu Corporation for 8% further interest in the Platreef project, enabling the Japanese company to participate in the exploration and development of Platreef,” states Ivanplats’ letter to shareholders in June 2011.

Itochu and Ivanplats established an implied valuation of the Platreef project of about $3.5- billion, and Itochu now holds a 10% interest in the project.

“The proceeds from the transaction will go towards further exploration, feasibility studies and development,” states the document.

Platreef Project

The Platreef project is located on the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, 8 km south of Anglo American Platinum’s Mogalakwena oper- ations.

In June 2011, Ivanplats was granted a three-year renewal of its prospecting permits for the Turfspruit and Macalacaskop farms.

“Our objective is to complete prefeasibility and feasibility studies, headed by the contractor, which will support an application for a mining licence and underground development of the Platreef discovery,” Ivanplats president and CEO Lars-Eric Johansson said in the letter.

Drilling and related activities have increased to achieve this objective, and 21 drill rigs are operational, with more scheduled to start operating.

The second half of 2011 focused on the conversion of a portion of the high-grade Platreef resources from inferred to indicated status.

Various companies are currently undertaking geotech- nical, socioeconomic and environmental, metallurgical and hydrogeological studies.

Kamoa Copper Project

Independently discovered by Ivanplats, the Kamoa Copperbelt is located west of the Kolwezi district of the Central African Copperbelt, which ranks as the most significant copper discovery in the DRC since Belgian colonial-era exploration over a century ago.

Kamoa was long-hidden under the aeolian, or windblown, sands of the Kalahari Desert. Drilling has been ongoing since the discovery in 2008 and the drill fleet has now been increased to seven rigs, with two additional rigs in transit.

Ivanplats has applied for the conversion of the Kamoa project to a mining licence to secure a formal mining title for the project, in conjunction with intensive exploration and development activities planned during the next several years.

Various companies are busy with prefeasibility, metallurgical, geotechnical, hydro- geological and socioeconomic and environmental studies.

The drilling focus is on the expansion of inferred and indicated resources at the unexplored margins of the copper system, specifically the eastern Kansoko area, where high-grade bornite and chalcocite mineralisation is present, and to the west, where shallow, potentially openpit, high-grade mineralisation was discovered and is being drilled in a previously untested part of Kamoa.

Further, additional rigs are aimed at further resource expansion and delineation in the high-grade Kansoko areas, as well as at Kamoa.

“We plan to drill the Kakula area, south of the Kamoa deposit, which has anomalous copper-in-soil geochemistry associated with structural domes analogous to Kamoa. Total diamond drilling for the second half of 2011 was targeted at 60 000 m,” states Johansson in the letter to shareholders.

Further, the regional exploration programme is under way and drilling is planned at Mamba, Nzilo and Lufira East, in addition to Ivanplats’ usual range of exploration activities to generate and advance prospective targets on its more than 9 000 km2 of exploration tenements.

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