ASX-listed Chilwa Minerals reports that reconnaissance hand panning has been extended to the south and south-east of Mpyupyu Hill at the company’s Mpyupyu West heavy mineral sands (HMS) discovery in Malawi.

Mineralisation has proven consistent and is interpreted to trend towards the company’s Mpyupyu Dune and Flat deposits.

The target now spans about 17 km², which is more than three times the about 5 km² first mapped in early June, and larger in area than those two deposits combined.

On June 19, Chilwa reported that the Mpyupyu mineral resource had more than doubled to 109.6-million tonnes, positioning it as the company’s largest HMS deposit and its first potential development front.

No decision to mine has been made, and any development of Mpyupyu remains subject to completion of the scoping study and further technical, economic, financing and regulatory assessment, Chilwa points out.

The company operates two sonic rigs. The first has restarted drilling at the Mpyupyu West target following the Malawi wet season, while the second is active at the Bimbi Southwest prospect.

Near-surface reconnaissance sampling is continuing across the southern and south-eastern flanks of Mpyupyu Hill to define the extent of the target and to inform the Mpyupyu West drill plan.

“The expansion of Mpyupyu West is a great result for Chilwa. Since announcing the discovery only a few weeks ago, our field teams have extended reconnaissance hand panning to the south and south-east of Mpyupyu Hill and have consistently panned visible heavy minerals.

“Importantly, that mineralisation appears to be trending towards our Mpyupyu Dune and Flat deposits, raising the prospect that the two could form part of a single, continuous system,” Chilwa MD Cadell Buss highlights.

He points out that the timing is ideal, with the company having just upgraded the Mpyupyu mineral resource to over double its previous size, and with close to 90% now in the measured and indicated categories and a high-grade core of 50.6-million tonnes at 4.65% total heavy minerals.

“The potential for Mpyupyu West to link physically with that upgraded resource is exactly the kind of low-cost, organic growth we set out to test,” Buss points out.

“Equally important, Mpyupyu West surrounds our Nakombe niobium/rare earth elements discovery. This proximity is strategically significant.

“If HMS mining at Mpyupyu progresses ahead of Nakombe, as our development sequencing suggests it will, the access roads, power, water, camp and logistics infrastructure built for the mineral sands operation would be directly available to support a future niobium development at Nakombe – materially derisking the capital and timeline for a second critical-minerals operation on the same contiguous licence,” Buss explains.

“With drilling now under way at Mpyupyu West and a substantially upgraded Mpyupyu resource behind us, Chilwa’s position as a multi-commodity critical minerals company on a single, contiguous licence continues to strengthen,” he adds.