NOT A NICKEL-AND-DIME OPERATION Botswana Metals Limited expects that its Maibele North project will benefit from nickel price increases in the long term
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Australian-listed metals miner Botswana Metals Limited (BML) expects to boost its share price on the back of a possible resource upgrade, following the release of the results of its prefeasibility study (PFS) on the Maibele North nickel project, located in Botswana’s Central District.
The PFS results, which will be released in the first quarter of 2016, are expected to reclassify the project’s inventory from an inferred to a measured category, improving confidence in the resource and crystallising the potential marketability of the property.
Additional catalysts may be realised through new discoveries on highly prospective versatile time-domain electromagnetic anomalies in the Maibele North area.
BML expects that Maibele North will benefit from long-term nickel prices being underpinned by a dearth of planned nickel projects and a decline in the production of cheaper nickel pig iron.
The London Metal Exchange nickel stockpiles have been declining since mid-2015, and this, along with an ongoing ban on exports in Indonesia, has prompted most forecasters to predict nickel price increases in the medium to long term.
Maibele North already hosts a resource of 2.38-million tons at 0.72% nickel, 0.21% copper and 0.63 g/t of platinum-group elements and gold. Mining licence applications have been lodged on the project.
Recent drilling at Maibele North has deli- vered significant sulphide mineralisation along strike to the east of the project resource. This includes several zones of massive and semi- massive mineralisation. “These new intersections are both infilling and adding depth extents to the new discovery zone,” the company notes.
Additionally, the project’s Takane area contains new drill targets that represent a discovery opportunity in a chronically underexplored part of Botswana known as the Limpopo Mobile Belt.
A new discovery on the Limpopo Belt could be a game changer for BML, especially consi- dering the Takane prospect’s similar style of anomalies to the Nova-Bollinger discovery. Western Australia’s Nova-Bollinger deposit boasts 14.3-million tons at 2.4% nickel and 0.9% copper.
Maibele North is only 50 km from the mining town of Selebi Phikwe, where 175-million tons of ore have already been mined. BML’s port- folio in this area includes a strike length of 32 km of the same geology.
BML is developing Maibele North under a joint venture (JV) with Botswana State-owned diversified mining company BCL, which has pursued an aggressive exploration programme at the site to date.
BCL is looking for new prospects, having mined 1 750-million tons of ore to a 1 km depth over the course of 50 years. BCL’s mining and smelting operation in Selebi Phikwe is supported by a town of more than 50 000 people and employs 5 000 people from the local area. The JV with BML is a priority exploration play for BCL.
BCL is funding the JV project until comple- tion of the bankable feasibility study and exploration for potential new discovery areas at Takane. An offtake agreement is already in place with BCL.