Exploration company Premier African Minerals has announced a positive exploration update on its RHA tungsten project, which is located in the prospective Kamativi tin belt, in north- west Zimbabwe.

The company believes the project has the potential to be developed into a low- capital and low-operating-cost tungsten mine in the near term.

“The update has revealed significant tungsten mineralisation in the form of very coarse wolframite crystals, hosted by quartz veins identified from drill- home intersections, and highlights the prospectivity of the RHA tungsten project. “We now intend to conduct low-cost surface trenching and sampling to confirm the extent of these newly identified quartz veins and define a maiden South African Mineral Resources Committee-compliant resource in the first half of the year,” says Premier African Minerals CEO George Roach.

Premier African Minerals is completing a conceptual mine study, which will determine the most beneficial and cost- effective method of exploiting the known extent of the RHA deposit.

“The conceptual study will consider the possibility of early and low-cost production from the recently discovered outcropping mineralised quartz veins and from the existing tailings dams and dumps.

“Given the availability of water and power at our RHA property, as well as the relative simplicity of the required processing plant, we believe that we will be able to start development towards production potentially before the end of 2013,” he adds.

Premier African Minerals has also commissioned mining consultancy CAE Mining to construct a three- dimensional (3D) Datamine model, using information derived from historic plans and sections and the results of the historic Falconbridge channel sampling work undertaken at RHA.

This work is now at an advanced stage and the results of Premier African Minerals’ first round of sampling have been modelled. The analytical results from the latest round of detailed sampling will be evaluated and included in the 3D Datamine model when the results are available.

The results of the latest round are slated for completion this month. The completed model will be used as the basis for a concept-mine technical and economic study, which Premier African Minerals aims to start towards the end of the first quarter of this year.