A definitive feasibility study (DFS) is currently under way at Australia- based resources company Blackthorn Resources’ Kitumba copper project, in Zambia. Fieldwork in support of the DFS is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

This follows the optimised prefeasibility study (PFS) results, which were published in June.

Mining consultancy The MSA Group geological services head Dr Brendan Clarke tells Mining Weekly that the project is currently in its eighth phase. The group has been involved in the project since the third phase, which started in 2006.

The MSA Group is providing the project with a turnkey geological and mineral resource solution, including management of the exploration drilling and metallurgical drilling programmes currently in progress.

To date, about 85 000 m of drilling has been completed through the various phases at Kitumba and the region around the current mineral resource area, which is also held by Blackthorn and is considered highly prospective.

The MSA Group is also managing the metallurgical, mineral resource, exploration and sterilisation core-drilling programmes at Kitumba, and a reverse-circulation percussion programme for water monitoring purposes to support the DFS.

“We are also doing down-hole surveys using acoustic televiewer technology, which provides an acoustically derived view of the inside of a borehole. This helps improve geotechnical planning for the project,” Clarke highlights.

He notes that securing water for the project has been the most significant challenge from the outset, resulting in the development of a complex pumping and reticulation system to mitigate the challenge.

The MSA Group GM Dr Ian Haddon adds that, because Kitumba is an iron oxide/copper/gold mineral deposit, “the initial exploration programme was technically challenging and a significant amount of drilling was completed before the first significant intersection of copper mineralisation was returned”.

Nevertheless, he tells Mining Weekly that the delineation of the Kitumba mineral resource was achieved through a strong understanding of the geology of the area and a well-planned and executed drilling programme.

“Kitumba has been a rewarding project that is technically interesting and supported by a great client in Blackthorn,” he asserts.

The MSA Group is also providing a range of geological services, including exploration management, technical consulting, competent-person oversight, geotechnical logging and data management, for State-owned Saudi Arabian mining company Ma’aden Gold & Base Metals (MGBM).

MGBM’s projects include the Central Arabian Gold Region (CAGR) and various base metal projects, as well as numerous greenfield exploration projects throughout Saudi Arabia.

Current exploration is focused on the greenfield projects and identifying new projects for the project pipeline through to 2018.

The greenfield exploration has relied heavily on the ionic leach assay method to detect subtle geochemical anomalies and anomalies buried under sand cover.

“We play a significant role in MGBM’s greenfields exploration, which spans the whole of Saudi Arabia. The programme has produced more than 100 000 soil samples and about 60 000 m of air-core drilling samples,” says Clarke, who believes that a significant portion of MGBM’s future mines will come from this exploration programme.

The bulk of the drilling work was focused on the CAGR projects and was completed between mid-2013 and early 2014, comprising about 65 000 m of drilling.

“The CAGR is a cluster of projects with known gold resources that required upgrading in terms of the mineral resource classification,” he explains, adding that the infill drilling programmes were designed to increase the confidence in the mineral resources to advance the projects to the PFS and DFS stages. Drilling was also done at some existing mines to add to the mineral resource inventory at these mines.

The MSA Group exploration project manager Michael Cronwright tells Mining Weekly that MGBM recently acquired hyper- spectral imaging equipment and will be using this to supplement and enhance its exploration capacity in the future.

The MSA Group is also providing geological logging and petrographic studies of the drill core from the various projects to better understand the geology and develop the geological models. “We make use of Maxwell GeoServices’ geologi- cal database management software, Datashed and QAQCReporter, to manage the assay quality- assurance and control processes, as well as the validation of all the collected data,” he says.

Local Partnerships
Haddon notes that the group has secured a local partner in Saudi Arabia – support services company Algosaibi Oilfield Services (AOS) – which has given the group the status of a locally based entity.

“Following The MSA Group’s award of this project, we realised there was a lot of potential for work in Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, our shareholders, South African services provider Mining, Oil & Gas Services, which has traditionally done a lot of work in Saudi Arabia, introduced us to AOS,” he highlights, concluding that this partnership will ensure that The MSA Group does more work in Saudi Arabia in future.