Noronex, South32 JV gears up to drill for Namibian | Australian Markets

Noronex Limited and its three way partnership companion South32 are gearing up to kick off a 7000-metre drilling program in search of copper at their joint Humpback-Damara project within the southwestern African nation of Namibia.

A contract has been signed for an intensive drilling marketing campaign, which the three way partnership companions count on to start subsequent month and full early subsequent 12 months. The program is an element of an agreed $3 million exploration marketing campaign to be carried out on the JV’s Namibian initiatives this financial 12 months.

The program is concentrating on new, large-scale copper discoveries within the Kalahari Copper Belt. It will check the mineralised contact on main domal buildings throughout a number of prospects, the place anomalous mineralisation was encountered in earlier restricted drilling applications.

South32, by means of a subsidiary company, is bankrolling the drilling at Humpback-Damara beneath an current earn-in and three way partnership settlement.

The settlement requires the globally diversified mining and metals company to spend $3 million per 12 months for 5 years, with a minimal $15 million spend incomes the company a 60 per cent curiosity within the Namibian project, which Noronex manages.

Management says its exploration program is gathering momentum. Noronex’s upcoming drilling program will goal the Humpback project, the company not too long ago accomplished drilling at its Fiesta project and it’s planning a diamond drilling marketing campaign at its new Oosterwald prospect.

Three diamond drill holes have been accomplished at Fiesta, within the west of the Humpback ground, with assay outcomes pending. The Fiesta project is on the western closure of a domal construction on the potential NPF-D’Kar contact.

Anomalous copper intercepts on the website seem to have many of the hallmarks present in massive deposits in Botswana, more than 400 kilometres east, together with at Chinese miner MMG’s long-life Khoemacau copper-silver mine, which comprises 370 million tonnes at a stellar copper-equivalent grade of 1.7 per cent.

The copper mineralisation is hosted as disseminated chalcocite, chalcopyrite and bornite in a sequence of shales and siltstones of D’Kar sediments.

As the present diamond drilling program at Fiesta wraps up and the rig relocates to Oosterwald, we’re additionally gearing up for the beginning of a main new RC drilling program in August as half of the $3 million investment dedicated this financial 12 months beneath our Namibian earn-in settlement with South32.

The diamond rig has now moved to the potential Oosterwald goal, half of Humpback-Damara, on the company’s not too long ago granted ground.

Drilling will goal a probably buried domal place of the D’Kar and Ngwako Pan formation contact. Management believes an uneroded dome supplies scope for a massive deposit in a totally preserved structural setting.

A deliberate gap will check an anomalous Heli-electromagnetic (EM) goal from a historic Heli-EM airborne survey accomplished by ASX-listed Sandfire Resources in 2022, flown to higher perceive the depth of cowl and effectiveness of airborne EM surveys throughout the ground.

Noronex may even probe with the drill-bit at its Powerline project, the place it has designed a reverse circulation program to check massive antiformal options outlined by a earlier aeromagnetic survey.

Key goal areas are the place the NPF-D’Kar contact is predicted within the anticlinal hinge zone, comparable to the location of working copper mines in Botswana, that are present in hinge zones. Previous restricted drilling returned anomalous intercepts on the NPF-D’Kar contact.

Previous exploration by a number of companies outlined regional targets, recognized as T1 to T16.

Plans for a program of detailed magnetic grids and profiles will start shortly to help drill concentrating on.

Noronex lodged two new functions with Botswana’s mines division earlier this 12 months by means of a totally owned subsidiary company to increase its holdings within the nation by virtually 1500 sq. kilometres, adjoining to the Humpback-Damara project on the Namibian facet of the border.

The two new Botswana tenements had been catapulted into the strategic alliance beneath the identical financial phrases as its Namibian initiatives, enabling South32 to bump up the JV ante and contribute a additional $1 million per 12 months for 5 years.

The extra contribution will carry South32’s annual funding obligation to the strategic alliance to $4 million every year, or a minimal $20 million over 5 years, to earn a 60 per cent stake within the agreed initiatives and tenement space.

Noronex will obtain the annual $4 million fee in $1 million instalments paid at first of every quarter to cowl the anticipated management, drilling and exploration prices incurred beneath its watch, offering a dependable money circulation enhance for the junior explorer.

The huge new Botswana ground sits within the northern part of the Kalahari Copper Belt and brings Noronex’s complete landholdings within the belt to practically 10,000 sq. kilometres.

Noronex additionally holds a 95 per cent curiosity within the Witvlei project in Namibia, containing a 10-million-tonne useful resource at 1.3 per cent copper.

The company additionally not too long ago kick-started a six-week radioactive spectrometry survey throughout 17.9 sq. kilometres of its Etango North uranium project in Namibia. The survey is designed to hunt for high-grade laborious rock uranium, often called alaskite, in a single of the world’s most fertile uranium neighbourhoods.

Noronex’s ground is simply 3km north of Bannerman Energy’s giant 225-million-pound Etango deposit and instantly south of main operations, such because the Rossing and Husab mines.

Both Noronex and South32 seem to consider Namibia is the land of alternative and it will likely be fascinating to see what develops from the various exploration applications on-the-go within the mineral-rich African nation.

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