Mining exploration and development group Orion Minerals has uncovered more high-grade copper mineralisation at the Flat Mine South (FMS) deposit in the Northern Cape, adding significant potential to the group’s Okiep copper project.
The company said on Tuesday it had received assay results confirming significant strike and down-dip extensions at FMS, opening the door to further extensions of the mineralisation that it inherited from Newmont and Gold Fields.
The latest drilling results build on the group’s recently completed geophysical surveys to identify “remarkable vertical persistence of strong copper mineralisation”, said Orion CEO Errol Smart.
“Our latest drilling result from FMS show that this deposit is stacking up to become a major growth hub for Okiep,” he said. Drilling efforts had not yet tested the deposit’s “most prospective horizon”.
The vertical continuity discovered at FMS indicated a “well-developed steep structure”, which has historically been correlated with deposits with the largest scale and highest-grade mineralisation in the region.
Ground geophysics and airborne survey data together allowed the group to predict the depth of this “highly prospective horizon”, said Smart, “and shows that we are now drilling at the upper reaches of the zone”.
“En echelon offsets with large blows of mineralisation at the Springbok Quartzite contact are typical at the largest known deposits in the Okiep Copper District,” he said.
The results added further momentum to Orion’s development strategy for Okiep, leading to a strategic decision by the group to investigate changing FMS’s primary mine access and ore handling strategy.
The results will be incorporated in the project’s feasibility study, due for release in January.
This comes after Orion successfully completed drilling at FMS and Flat Mine North in September. Smart said that the results confirmed Orion’s “best expectations regarding the quality and reliability of the historical drilling data from Okiep”.
Orion was granted a key water-use licence for the project in August, overcoming the final regulatory hurdle on its path to construction and production at Okiep.
In August, Orion was granted two additional high-priority prospecting rights for Okiep after a three-year administrative process.
Orion hoped the project would become its second base-metal production hub in the Northern Cape, alongside its flagship Prieska Copper-Zinc mine.
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