Market welcomes Orion’s survey to help identify drill targets
THE SHARES of copper and zinc prospector Orion Minerals climbed by 7 percent on the JSE as the market cheered news that the company had started a first-of-its-kind survey in the Northern Cape using high-powered airborne electromagnetic (EM) tools.
Orion said the survey aimed to help identify drill targets of new high grade copper deposits at the company’s Okiep Copper Project.
Orion’s managing director and chief executive, Errol Smart, said: “It’s almost unthinkable that a district that has produced more than 2 million tons of copper from sulphide ore with associated pyrrhotite has never been surveyed with airborne EM. Modern explorationists consider high power airborne EM as a primary exploration tool for this style of mineralisation.”
“The powerful geophysical tools that we are using will be targeting mafic intrusive bodies with high magnetite content, that we expect will be detected with natural magnetism and that will have small zones of conductive pyrrhotite content associated with copper sulphides, that will be detected by the powerful EM instruments,” Smart said.
Orion said the regional survey would cover an area of approximately 1 827km², with around 1 073 line kilometres flown at 1km line spacing, and was expected to take about five to six weeks to complete, weather permitting.
Earlier this month Orion said that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Council for Geosciences for several of significant exploration initiatives in the Northern Cape. The partnership was expected to go a long way to secure the 5 percent global exploration share consistent with the commitment by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
“We are also surveying the surrounding area in collaboration with the Council for Geosciences, in order to identify the district scale structural controls on emplacement of the mafic intrusive bodies, that will assist all explorers working in the district, which we believe has potential to return to being a major copper producing district,” said Smart.
The Council of Geoscience said earlier this month that the Northern Cape Province was one of the most geologically prospective regions in the world, and yet had very little modern exploration over it. “We believe that there is a major opportunity by applying the latest exploration techniques and methodologies to make significant new discoveries. It all begins with having access to high-quality data, and that’s what this MOU is all about.”
JSE and Australian-listed Orion is currently in the financing phase of the project development of the Prieska Copper-Zinc project in the Northern Cape. Orion shares closed 5.13 percent higher at 41c a share on the JSE yesterday.