LONDON Stock Exchange-listed metal exploration company Kavango Resources is consolidating bulk-mining to increase Zimbabwe’s gold production, NewsDay Business can report.
The company, which has begun work at its Hillside gold project in Matabeleland South province, disclosed that the nation’s bulk-mining potential remained largely underdeveloped as the process requires the open pit mining of a large ore body in order to be economic.
“Kavango has consolidated strategically-sized land packages around a number of historic high-grade gold mines in the Matabeleland region of Zimbabwe,” the mining firm said in a statement following release of assay results for its Hillside project.
“The company’s objective is to investigate their wider, under-developed bulk-mining potential. Bulk-mining is the large-scale extraction of near-surface gold from vast open-pit mines. Because of the large quantities of ore being processed, bulk mining allows gold to be produced economically from lower-grade material than high-grade underground mining.”
Open pit mining has become the dominant style of mining in Western Australia and has been the primary driver behind Australia’s emergence as the world’s leading gold producer in recent decades.
The firm believes Zimbabwe’s geology mirrors that of Western Australia as the country has a rich history of high-grade gold mining across its greenstone belts.
However, it added that Zimbabwe’s potential to host a multitude of large-scale, bulk minable gold deposits remained largely undeveloped presenting the nation with an immense economic opportunity.
Kavango said many of Zimbabwe’s historic high-grade mines and the areas surrounding them were split into small ground claims held by various owners.
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As the firm is consolidating claims into packages on the scale required for economic bulk mining to take place, it indicated that it was using modern exploration and drilling techniques to assess potential for hosting open pit mines, helping to modernise Zimbabwe’s gold mining industry.
“Kavango began an exploration and drilling programme across its three existing projects late last year, starting with its Hillside project. Work began at Hillside, and results so far have exceeded the company’s expectations, providing strong evidence of the project’s open pit mining potential,” it noted.
“Last month, Kavango revealed that assays from drilling at Hillside Prospects 2 and 4 had returned wide areas of significant gold at shallow depths.”
Kavango’s next steps at Hillside are expected to see the testing of the gold-bearing potential of the shears it has interpreted at Prospects two and three with a series of drill holes.
This is expected to enable it to test the potential for a bulk mineable gold deposit across the entire shear zone at both prospects.
The company is also awaiting assay results from Hillside Prospects 1 and 4. Drilling is also underway at its Nara project to test a 200-metre wide by five kilometres long strike corridor within the property, which have been interpreted as a potential shear zone.
Drilling is also planned at the Leopard project.
