State-owned Epangelo Mining Company (Pty) Ltd and WIA Gold Limited, announce a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the Kokoseb gold deposit, situated within EPL 4818, to the north of the town of Okombahe which lies 220 km NW of Windhoek. This project is a joint venture between Epangelo Mining Company (Pty) Ltd and Damaran Exploration (a wholly-owned subsidiary of WIA Gold Limited).
The MRE at Kokoseb is 1.3 Moz at 1.0 g/t gold, at a cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t within a US$1,800/Oz pit shell. The MRE has demonstrated very good continuity in grade and width along the mineralized sections from surface.
Preliminary metallurgical test results returned excellent gold recoveries above 91% via a gravity and standard direct leach process, confirming the development potential for Kokoseb.
Kokoseb was first identified in May 2021, by a regional 500 by 500m soil-sampling program that was completed over the licence. Anomalous zones were then infilled at a 100m x 25/50m spacing leading to the definition of the Kokoseb soil anomaly, a very coherent +100ppb gold anomaly, in November 2021.
A trenching program, which commenced in September 2021, confirmed the mineralisation at Kokoseb, which was followed up by a small-scale diamond-drilling program completed in early 2022. An RC drilling program commenced at the end of the June quarter 2022 and has formed the basis of the MRE.
The dataset for the MRE, as of 10 May 2023, includes results from 12 diamond holes and 90 RC holes, totaling 19,496m of drilling, along with data from 10 trenches for 1,058m.
The model containing the current MRE covers approximately 3km of the potentially 6.5Km mineralised strike as identified by drilling to date. The remaining 3.5km of mineralised strike is considered as representing an Exploration Target and was not included in the Mineral Resource. At a cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t, the model constructed for the current MRE study generates an additional Exploration Target of approximately 25 to 35 million tonnes at gold grades of approximately 0.7 to 1.1 g/t. There is however, no certainty that further exploration work on the Exploration Target will result in the determination of mineral resources or that the exploration target itself will be realised.
Several higher-grade plunging shoots have already been identified beneath the present pit outlines and these are currently being followed up to see if they can be added to the current resource estimate.
Geologically, Kokoseb lies within the Northern Central Zone of the Pan-African Damaran Orogenic Belt around 15km south of the Otjihorongo Thrust, which separates the Northern Zone from the Northern Central Zone, and about 30km west of the NNE trending Welwitschia Lineament. The project area is underlain by metasediments of the Arandis, Karibib and Kuiseb Formations of the Swakop Group. Gold mineralisation is found in the Kuiseb Formation metasediments, which are extensively intruded, by both late syn-tectonic and post-tectonic granites, and minor N-S to NNE-SSW trending mafic dykes. There is generally moderate to good exposure throughout the licence area though the Kuiseb formation tends to only sub-outcrop and is commonly covered by thin soil, colluvium or pisolitic calcrete up to 2m thick.
The joint venture is committed to investing “money in the ground”, as highlighted by the extremely low-cost discovery at Kokoseb of US$2/oz of gold. Further details on the Kokoseb Project will be shared at the upcoming Mining Expo, to be held in Windhoek on 30-31 August 2023.
Contributed by WIA Gold & Epangelo Mining
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