Online Reporter
Sikhulekelani Moyo
Zimpapers Business Hub
CALEDONIA Mining Corporation Plc says the ongoing exploration drilling exercise at Blanket Mine in Gwanda is demonstrating encouraging results, increasing the company’s confidence in its mineral resource and pointing to future mineral resource growth.
In a statement, Caledonia said the drilling programme seeks to evaluate the continuity of the mineralised zones on the Blanket, Eroica and Lima orebodies, which comprise three of the main orebodies at Blanket Mine.
The objectives of the programme are to increase the confidence levels of the existing mineral resource and to grow the mineral resource estimate below the 34 level of the mine (1 110 metres).
Caledonia chief executive officer, Mr Mark Learmonth, said the grades and widths they were seeing from this drilling campaign were as good as and, in some cases, considerably better than results from previous drilling campaigns, which was highly encouraging.
“Our ongoing drilling campaign continues to demonstrate encouraging results, further improving our confidence in the Blanket Mine mineral resource and pointing to additional future mineral resource growth,” said Mr Learmonth.
“We anticipate that the positive grades and widths will result in an increased overall mineral resource estimate, which in due course should result in the extension of the existing life of mine.We have invested heavily in Blanket Mine over the last seven years to increase production capacity, resulting in a mine infrastructure that can sustain production beyond the current production horizon.”
The drilling is focused on the Blanket and Eroica orebodies, where crosscuts have been developed to allow optimal access to drill the deeper zones of the steeply dipping orebodies.
“These results are extremely promising, and we look forward to the next phase of drilling and updating the market accordingly,” he said.
Peter Tanyanyiwa