Kavango produces first refined gold

Kavango Resources plc’s first monthly production nearly reached the company’s 2024 target at its Hillside gold project in Matabeleland, southern Zimbabwe.

INCREASE

Final refined gold production in March was 899.6g of gold, which is anticipated to show a “significant increase” as direct mining begins. Any surplus generated will be used in its exploration programmes in Zimbabwe.

“I am very pleased to report that Kavango Mining was operationally profitable in March, its first month of trading,” said chief executive Ben Turney.

“We produced 899g of gold. Our original goal was to reach 1kg of production over the course of 2024, so we are well ahead of schedule.

“We now anticipate Kavango Mining is on course to be a consistently profitable business unit over 2024.

“We have a strong foundation to build on, as we increase direct production, open new sources of ore and invest in production capacity at Hillside.”

BULK

Exploration drilling contnues at Hillside which comprises 40 contiguous gold claims and contains a historic high-grade underground mine.

New results are from scoping hole BRDD001, targeting mineralisation below sets of artisanal workings on the northern margin of a broad deformation zone at prospect 2.

The hole, drilled to 400.4m, intersected an “intensely deformed and well mineralised zone 7.2m wide”, hosting gold and associated sulphides at a “relatively shallow depth”.

Best results in the hole include 7.2m @ 9.95 g/t gold from 50.64 m and including 1.61 m @ 31.57 g/t gold.

Kavango found gold in artisanal workings across a deformation zone between prospects 2 and 3, together with observed disseminated sulphides in the core from BRDD001.

This prompted an induced polarisation survey across the deformation zone, which identified a series of IP anomalies interpreted to represent “a set of anastomosing shears” hosted within a broad deformation zone, approximately 700m wide.

The company said it intended to test the gold-bearing potential of the shears in future exploration by drilling a fence of holes to test for a bulk-minable gold deposit across the zone.

Results are pending for NSDD001 on prospect 3, located on the southern end of the deformation zone.

Prospect 2’s results follow those of prospect 4 which the company upgraded after identifying up to five “potentially mineralised shear zones” from an IP survey.

Kavango added that two of the zones appeared to coincide with a series of parallel artisanal workings.

Three additional shear zones were interpreted to be under slightly thicker cover, undiscovered by artisanal miners and with no indications of historic workings.

The rig, currently at the Nara project, will return to Hillside to drill a fence of six holes to test the potential for a bulk-minable gold deposit at prospect 4.

The company’s current commercial options for prospect 4 include becoming a source of low-tonnage, high-grade ore; a high-tonnage, open-pit mine subject to width, grade and metallurgy of any gold-bearing zones; and a possible hybrid bulk-mineable opportunity.