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Michael Tome
Business Reporter
LONDON-listed metals exploration company Kavango Resources PLC says it is making strides at its Hillside gold project in Matabeleland South Province, after two shallow discoveries, which have enhanced the potential for an open-pit mine.
Kavango is in the market to raise about £3,08 million (US$3,86 million) from 257,11 million new ordinary shares issued at 1,2 pence per share through an underwritten accelerated bookbuild.
The capital raise is meant to fund its Zimbabwe and Botswana projects. Gold is Zimbabwe’s single largest export earner, with mining accounting for more than three-quarters of the country’s annual shipments.
Gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners totaled 30,11 tonnes in 2023, compared to the 40 tonnes haul the country had envisioned for the year.
At the height of the economic meltdown in 2008, output of the yellow metal fell to a record 3 tonnes.
Supportive Government policy for both large and small-scale producers, who account for roughly 60 percent of national output, has over the years seen massive recovery in the country’s biggest export earner.
The mining firm has been making notable progress towards developing open pit mines in Zimbabwe.
As it stands, Kavango is consolidating strategically sized land packages around several historic high-grade gold mines in the Matabeleland region for economic bulk mining.
Currently, the company’s objective is to investigate wider and under-developed bulk-mining potential.
This is because bulk mining requires the open pit mining of a large ore-body to be economic.
Bulk mining is the large-scale extraction of near-surface gold from vast open-pit mines.
The process allows gold to be produced economically from lower-grade material compared to high-grade underground mining.
Kavango intends to use modern exploration and drilling methods to assess their potential for hosting open pit mines, a development that will help modernise Zimbabwe’s gold mining industry.
Bulk mining has been the primary driver behind soaring gold production in Western Australia over the past four decades.
According to Kavango Zimbabwe has a long history of high-grade gold mining across some 4 000 deposits, with production exceeding that of Australia in the early 1980s.
However, Zimbabwe’s bulk-mining potential remains largely untapped.
The mining firm initiated its exploration and drilling programme across its three existing projects late last year, spearheaded by the Hillside project.
Hillside Prospects 2 and 4 projects are now at an advanced stage along with the Nara and Leopard projects, which also carry massive potential while the firm awaits assay results from Hillside Prospects 1 and 4.
Recent assays from Hillside prospects 2 and 4 discovered wide areas of significant gold at shallow depths.
Results from Hillside Prospect 2 drill assays showed 7, 2 metres with a potential of 9,95 grams of gold per tonne from 50, 64 metres with a potential of 31,57 grams of gold per tonne.
Highlight intersections from Prospect 4 include 2, 53 metres with a potential of 29, 08 grams of gold per tonne.
Induced Polarisation (IP) survey results from the Hillside project are advancing Kavango towards its objective of developing Western Australia-style open pit gold mines in Zimbabwe.
Commenting on the developments, Kavango chief executive officer Mr Ben Turney said the company’s objective was to develop Western Australia-style open pit gold mines in Zimbabwe.
Adding that work had begun at Hillside and results so far have exceeded the company’s expectations, providing strong evidence of the project’s open pit mining potential.
“Zimbabwe’s geology mirrors that of Western Australia and the country has a rich history of high-grade gold mining across its greenstone belts. However, Zimbabwe’s potential to host a multitude of large-scale, bulk minable gold deposits remains largely undeveloped. This presents the nation with an immense economic opportunity.
“Kavango has identified a strong pipeline of claim packages covering historic high-grade gold mines. We are now applying modern exploration and drilling techniques across three of these to assess their open pit potential and develop bulk mining operations.
“In doing so, our objective is to contribute to the 2030 Vision of turning Zimbabwe into an upper middle-income economy,” said Mr Turney.
He said 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.
Going forward Kavango’s next steps at Hillside include testing the gold-bearing potential of the shears at Prospects 2 and 3.
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