Orion Minerals Ltd (ASX:ORN, JSE:ORN) is looking forward to a busy season of resource definition and exploration at the Okiep Copper Project in South Africa where the company has secured two high-priority prospecting licences for the Greater Flat Mines Area, ground already host to a resource of 1.5 million tonnes at 1.3% copper.
The company is finalising a bankable feasibility study (BFS) for the core Flat Mines Mining Right zone of the project, an important technical assessment ORN intends to augment with additional resources from the new grants.
Several other deposits on the licences have been drilled to high-density levels of definition by previous owners, offering near-term opportunities for more JORC resources once confirmation drilling is complete.
ORN has also identified 15 fresh targets with geophysical survey data, which the company intends to explore immediately.
Resolution of three-year process
“We are thrilled to have secured the grant of these prospecting rights following a three-year administrative process,” Orion Minerals managing director and CEO Errol Smart said.
“Orion’s recent purchase of surface rights over some of the area covering these prospecting rights finally resolved the impasse for surface access and environmental approvals.
“This now allows Orion to finally access this highly prospective ground, where we have already used high-quality historical Gold Fields and Newmont drill data to estimate and declare JORC-compliant mineral resources.”
The new licences surround the Flat Mines Mining Right, where ORN is finalising plans for development of a central concentrator plant.
Locality map of the granted SAFTA prospecting rights, showing historical mines and current JORC mineral resources.
Multiple near-JORC-level deposits
“Several additional deposits on the prospecting rights that were also drilled by the previous owners require minor infill drilling before resource estimation can be completed to JORC compliance,” Smart continued.
“These prospects can be considered advanced-stage projects that have near-term potential to add feed to our planned Flat Mines Central concentrator.
“All of the ore from deposits historically mined in the greater Flat Mines Area was trucked to a central concentrator located just south of where we intend building our new central concentrator.
“Our BFS for Flat Mines is nearing completion and includes the planned construction of a new modern concentrator plant and tailings storage facility that will replace the historical facilities.
“Importantly, the new central plant, together with modern improvements in processing technology such as the application of XRF ore sorting, present a compelling case for both expansion and extension of the life-of-mine plan for Flat Mines and to unlock the potential of some of the known deposits where internal waste dilution was problematic.”
The new licences cover seven historical copper mines and seven unmined prospects where Gold Fields Ltd and Newmont Corporation defined strongly mineralised bodies with high-density drilling.
They also include the existing JORC resource, which combines inferred resources for the Jan Coetzee Mine and Nababeep Kloof Mine for an estimate of 20,000 tonnes of contained copper at 1.3%.
ORN is planning drilling programs to infill this resource as soon as possible.
Ground crews mobilised
“These prospecting rights also contain some of our highest priority greenfields exploration targets in the district, where our 2021 SkyTEM heliborne electromagnetic survey revealed strong conductors both on the prospecting rights and straddling the boundary with our Flat Mines Mining Right,” Smart highlighted.
“We are immediately mobilising ground geophysics crews and deploying drilling rigs to test some of the targets that we have not been able to access until now.”
ORN’s SkyTEM survey represented the first application of modern geophysical survey techniques on the tenure, generating 15 new targets untested by previous owners.
Map showing prioritised targets as selected from aeromagnetic, airborne EM and geological data overlain on a Total Field Magnetic image.
ORN has ranked them in order of prospectivity, immediately moving to action detailed ground geophysics and diamond drilling on its new pipeline of drilling targets with an eye to its BFS and overall mine plan.
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