Shares in Kavango Resources (LSE: KAV) jumped today after the company announced the much-anticipated final report for its proof-of-concept drilling campaign at its flagship Kalahari Suture Zone (“KSZ”) project in Botswana.
Author: Alex Chalk
The work, which was authored by industry veteran Richard Hornsey, provided geochemical proof of mineralising processes for magmatic nickel, copper, and platinum group elements (“PGE”).
Alongside this, it also identified previously unrecognised PGE potential in the south of Kavango’s KSZ licence area and introduced new ore deposit models that will allow the company to zone in on the right host rocks and upgrade future targeting.
The in-depth executive summary of the work can be viewed here: https://kavangoresources.com/media-library/technical-reports
Ben Turney, Kavango’s chief executive, was elated with the report, highlighting the completion of “the most comprehensive and successful exploration programme” ever completed over the KSZ.
“This is a regionally extensive project, but thanks to Richard Hornsey’s detailed work we will be able to focus our programme. Specifically, we now have several exploration vectors to enable us sharpen future targeting,” he added.
“We are the first company to demonstrate that mineralising processes have occurred throughout the KSZ, based upon evidence of nickel, copper and PGE depletion and enrichment. This suggests there is a high likelihood that potentially economic magmatic mineralisation may exist, both within the Karoo and the Proterozoic Tshane Complex. The main questions to answer now are where and at what depth?”.
An important point of the report was its affirmation that Kavango is using the correct technology to zone in on deposits if they are there.
As Turney highlighted, Hornsey’s work points out tthat the state-of-the-art sensor technologies the company is using–specifically CSAMT and TDEM–are suited ideally to identifying potentially mineralised targets in the KSZ.
A breakdown on how these technologies can be found here: https://www.kavangoresources.com/blog/how-were-overcoming-botswanas-biggest-challenge
So, what now? Well, Kavango now plans to launch into two parallel streams of work regarding the KSZ.
In the field, the company will continue to deploy CSAMT and TDEM surveys while preparing to drill its B conductors. As revealed last month, these lie over the project’s highly prospective “Great Red Spot” conductor and bear a strong resemblance to the nickel-copper-PGE deposits at Norilsk.
Norilsk, for what its worth, accounts for 90% of Russia’s nickel reserves, 55% of its copper and virtually all of its PGMs.
Meanwhile, the company also plans to use Hornsey’s documents to step up its efforts to seek out a JV partner. Specifically, Turney said:
“The technical review is a substantial piece of work that contextualises the project based upon our exploration results and enables Kavango to undertake much more informed discussions with interested parties.”
What will happen next? Nobody knows right now. But what is clear is that Kavango is another step closer to proving up what stands to be a world-class nickel/copper project at a time when both metals are being fought over by majors.
We’ll be watching carefully from here.
Author: Alex Chalk
Disclaimer: The author has been paid for the production of this piece by the company or companies mentioned above.
