Aussie explorer bullish on Kalahari copper belt
Staff Writer | Tuesday September 9, 2014 12:40
Last week, the managing director of MOD Resources Julian Hanna said Botswana remained relatively unexplored, particularly the 700 km Kalahari Copperbelt, which was a “well-endowed metal province” with significant sediment-hosted copper/silver deposits. Hanna noted that as a result of recent developments in the Copperbelt, the Australia Stock Exchange-listed MOD believed the potential of the well-mineralised region was only starting to be realised. MOD Resources was the second-largest tenement holder in the Kalahari Copperbelt, and its Botswana copper project comprised a “vast and strategically located” area in the centre of the province. “MOD has 80 percent to 100 percent interests in more than 7,500 square kilometres of granted licences, so we are well positioned to make new discoveries,” he said, pointing to a recent raising of $2-million to embark on infill and extension drilling programmes and a conceptual mining study at its 100 percent-owned Mahumo copper/silver project, also in the Kalahari Copperbelt. “Our team has now identified high-grade copper and silver mineralisation at Mahumo, in addition to a number of other exciting targets, and now has funding and a well-defined strategy to test this potential,” he concluded. Recently MOD raised $2 million (P17.6 million) in a two-tranche placement. The majority of funds are planned to be used for drilling programmes at the 100 percent owned Mahumo copper/silver project. Tranche one, which remains subject to the clearance of funds, involved the issue of 143.125 million new ordinary shares at an issue price of A$0.008 per share to raise A$1.145 million under the company’s existing placement capacity. Botswana currently has three copper mines, which include Boseto, BCL and African Copper’s Mowana mine. In the Kalahari belt, Boseto intends starting a new underground mine with a new one in the Gantsi area also envisaged to begin operations in the next three years.