London-listed North River Resources announced last month that it had expanded its Namib lead/zinc project area, after having been granted a new exclusive prospecting licence (EPL), EPL 5075, which covers an area contiguous to its existing EPL 2902.
The new EPL expands the company’s exploration area from 4 523 ha to 16 918 ha and extends primarily south of the Namib mine site and crosses the Trans-Kalahari highway. EPL 5075, like EPL 2902, is located on excellent mining country. It is largely flat, denuded desert, with little or no cover, the company states.
“The coming months will be highly active at our flagship Namib lead/zinc project, where we plan to accelerate exploration through drilling, geophysics and other studies. Consequently, it makes sense to secure prospective targets on EPL 5075, which could potentially supply new ore sources for Namib. We are moving quickly to develop a surface exploration programme, which will add a significant new dimension to the Namib project,” says North River Resources MD Martin French.
North River is also finalising environmental clearances and designing its works programmes for the mine.
Previous exploration of the area, which includes a significant amount of drilling and surface geochemistry, has highlighted numerous surface gossans that are similar in size to the one that led to the establishment of the Namib mine, which produced lead, zinc and silver from 1969 to 1991.
In addition, historic exploration has provided positive indications that lead and zinc ore are present within EPL 5075, which is underpinned by the presence of the Karib Formation host marble, which folds and widens within the licence area. The formation contains lead, zinc and silver ore.
“Historic data indicates that previous explorers only drilled shallow exploration holes and thus significant ore may have been missed at depth,” says North River Resources.
Meanwhile, North River also announced that it has allowed its Ubib EPL to lapse.
The company had carried out a surface explo- ration programme for the principal targets of gold and copper on the Ubib EPL, but failed to find sufficient evidence of commercial prospectiveness to warrant further expenditure.
North River Resources also noted a uranium anomaly on the EPL. However, the Namibian authorities have made it clear that the moratorium on new nuclear fuels exploration licences continues and, as a result, the board has decided to allow the EPL to lapse.
North River Resources also decided to dissolve its Brandberg joint venture with exploration company Extract Resources.
The 50% joint venture was created in January 2012 to complete a 1 500 m drill programme to test two uranium targets that were identified on EPLs 3327 and 3328 through horizontal-loop electromagnetic surveys in 2011.
In September 2012, it was reported that the programme did not identify mineralisation in commercial quantities. Therefore, no further work was planned.
It was decided to keep the joint venture in place for potential exploration should a nuclear fuels licence be granted for EPL 3139.
“However, this has not been forthcoming, and therefore, North River and Extract Resources have decided to dissolve the joint venture,” the company says.
“In line with our policy of streamlining our portfolio, we have allowed EPL 3139 to lapse and have dissolved the Brandberg joint venture as we focus our efforts on adding value to Namib in 2013,” French concludes.