JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim- and AltX-listed minerals developer Kibo Mining has completed Phase 1 of its consolidation strategy for its tenement portfolio in Lake Victoria, as part of the company’s ongoing assessment of its total licence holdings in Tanzania.

This followed an announcement by the company in June that it would pursue a significant reduction in its grassroots mineral interests in the country.

The consolidated portfolio now also includes the brownfield Lubando and Imweru exploration projects, located along strike of AngloGold Ashanti’s Lake Victoria goldfield-based Geita deposits, which had an estimated pre-mining gold endowment of 23-million ounces at 4 g/t.

Lubando and Imweru boast a combined estimated measured, indicated and inferred mineral resource of 797 900 oz of gold.

The company said the consolidation of these projects into the Lake Victoria gold portfolio at a combined direct cash cost of $150 000, as well as the relinquishment of 595 km2 of prospecting licences had fulfilled the review’s primary objective of reducing the size of land-holdings and associated carrying costs.

Kibo would focus on more advanced project areas, where targets with higher prospectivity could be fast-tracked up the value curve.

“The consolidation represents a meaningful step in our ongoing strategy of right-sizing our mineral licence portfolio by relinquishing some early-stage licences and consolidating regional blocks of more advanced and prospective ground in known gold regions of Tanzania,” CEO Louis Coetzer said in a statement on Tuesday.

In line with the recommendations in the resource reports, Kibo would continue to advance drilling programmes on both sites to improve the quality of the existing resource and to drill-test adjacent anomalous areas resulting from previous soil sampling and geophysical survey results.

The company believed there was “excellent” potential for defining significant further resources in the near term through exploration targeted at open areas of the resource, as well as through the remodelling of the resource at the current gold price.

The gold price was currently at around $1 300/oz, compared with the $850/oz used in prior resource estimates.

In addition, as Kibo held several properties in the Geita region and the surrounding greater Lake Victoria goldfield, the Lubando and Imweru projects would benefit from the existing logistical and operational infrastructure.

In keeping with its ongoing rationalisation and consolidation of its licence portfolio, the company would continue to review further consolidation opportunities in this region on projects that demonstrated good gold potential and could be consolidated on favourable terms.

Meanwhile, Kibo would continue to advance the establishment of a joint venture (JV) with its Korean strategic partner for the Rukwa coal-to-power project, in Tanzania, in the near future.

The company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with East-West Power (EWP), which provides for the general terms of the partnership, including terms on the scope of cooperation, sharing of information and confidentiality.

Coetzer said Kibo would host EWP on a site visit to Rukwa this month and hoped to finalise the JV shortly thereafter.