https://www.miningweekly.com

Miner confirms high-grade gold mineralisation

5th June 2015

  

Font size: - +

Aim-listed Savannah Resources has defined an initial 65-million tons maiden inferred mineral resource estimate (MRE) at its Jangamo heavy mineral sands (HMS) project, in southern Mozambique.

Savannah CEO David Archer said in December that initial resource drilling was targeting two areas within the eastern arm of the tenement to define the maiden MRE.

He notes that mining major Rio Tinto’s adjacent Mutamba deposit has an exploration target of between 7-billion tons and 12-billion tons at between 3% and 4.5% total heavy minerals (THM) content.

He notes that Savannah’s strategy was to target potential extensions of the Mutamba mineralisation into the Jangamo tenement, with a primary focus of defining mineralisation at the upper end of the grade range for the Mutamba deposit of over 4% THM.

“The [defined] MRE provides us with a solid resource base to build on with further resource drilling,” Archer says.

“The deposit we have identified is part of the very large Mutamba HMS system with excellent potential to further expand the mineral resource, which remains open along strike, in Savannah’s tenement area,” Archer details.

He further says the drilling exercise also identified a major HMS system in the western part of the tenement with intersections of up to 45 m at 3.51% THM from 12 m.

“The western system, which extends over at least 10 km in strike, requires further exploration to be undertaken prior to resource drilling. Jangamo is part of a very large system and we are focused on defining a higher-grade project that has superior economic characteristics for the development of a profitable mining operation with modest capital costs.”

He elaborates that much of the mineral resource in Jangamo is at the surface, which complements the favourable local infrastructure setting of nearby roads, power and a port.

‘’We will now look to assess a number of promising commercial and strategic options for Jangamo following on from the definition of the maiden MRE. This is being done in parallel with the field programme in Mozambique, which recommenced in March following the wet season, with work to focus on the expansion of the current resource base,” he adds.

Other Projects
Meanwhile, Savannah last month announced that it had identified further areas of high-grade gold mineralisation with associated copper and zinc at its Gaddamah prospect at Block 4, in Oman, in the Arabian Peninsula.

The results form part of a recently completed rock chipping, trenching and geological mapping programme at the prospect, which is 7 km south of the Ghayth prospect, also in Block 4, where a diamond drilling programme has just been completed intersecting volcanic massive sulphide- (VMS-) style copper mineralisation.

Archer states that the company in April also completed a 3 667-line km versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) survey and an airborne magnetic survey over the Block 4 copper/gold project.

“The completion of the airborne VTEM and magnetic surveys are key milestones in the Block 4 exploration programme as we continue to unlock the value potential of our Oman copper/gold projects. Block 4 has not, until now, been covered by VTEM, which has been so successful in identifying new copper deposits in nearby blocks over the past ten years, and we see this as a significant opportunity to quickly build on the existing 1.7-million tons at 2.2% copper mineral resource inventory we have in Oman.

“Importantly, the region has been a prolific producer of copper from both opencut and underground mines at Aarja, Bayda, Lasail and Lasail West with reported contained copper, both mined and unmined, of about 238 840 t. This strong history of production in the immediate area supports the excellent potential for the discovery of further VMS deposits within Block 4, as this style of deposit is known to occur in clusters or camps,” he explains.

Savannah Resources is a multicommodity exploration and development company that is focused on advancing the Jangamo HMS in Mozambique, and two highly prospective copper blocks in Oman with the aim of building a global development and, ultimately, production company.

Savannah holds a strategic interest in Aim-listed Alecto Minerals, which provides exposure to a number of gold projects in Mali, Ethiopia and Mauritania.

Edited by Leandi Kolver
Creamer Media Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION