Si6 Metals is banging ahead with the drill at its Dibete copper-silver project in Botswana, having revealed that five out of 15 reverse-circulation (RC) holes are glittering with the visual copper-sulfidic minerals chalcopyrite and chalcocite in rock-chip samples.
A diamond drilling rig has now arrived onsite to drill the tails of RC holes to test geophysical anomalies at depth and the company believes it has “barely scratched the surface”.
At Si6’s Dibete and Airstrip deposits, nine trenches were dozed over geophysical anomalies, with some revealing copper oxide in the form of malachite, a supergene weathering product of primary sulfidic copper ores.
The RC campaign was designed to explore the copper oxide and primary zones in multiple untested “pipe-like” geophysical anomalies through a 4.5km-by-1km-by-500m continuous trend and to explore the deeper realms with a diamond drilling rig. Of the 4000m planned for Dibete, some 633m has been churned from the five RC holes with plenty of copper encouragement. Assays are expected back from South Africa next month.
Si6 Metals managing director Jim Malone said: “We are very pleased with the progress at Dibete to date. The presence of visual sulphides in part of the anomaly is highly encouraging and we’re now very much looking forward to seeing the results. We’ve barely scratched the surface.”
The company says Dibete is the first of three flagship projects to be drill-tested, with some 10,000m of work forecast in the next six months and campaigns at Airstrip and Malbele North to follow. Historic drilling at Dibete clocked up an eye-watering 11m intercept with 4.5 per cent copper and 229 grams per tonne silver from 33m – enough to make any self-respecting geologist salivate like Pavlov’s dog.
Maibele North has a JORC-compliant inferred resource of 2.38 million tonnes at 0.72 per cent nickel and 0.21 per cent copper using a 0.3 per cent nickel cut-off. It was announced in 2015 and is due for a major post-drilling review.
Following the Dibete program, the drilling rigs will be mobilised to the Airstrip copper-gold prospect and then to the Maibele North nickel-copper-platinum group elements (PGE) deposit to test geophysical targets and improve resource estimates. Concurrently, an update of the Maibele North mineral resource estimate (MRE) will be undertaken, incorporating historic drill data and to optimise the drill locations.
Once all assays are integrated, an assessment will be made on the potential for open-pit mining and sulphide processing at the deposit.
But in the meantime, just picture this – rock-chip samples sparkling with copper mineralisation and the anticipation of awesome assays to follow. Even Tarzan would be banging his jungle drums to get that mellifluous message out to the world.
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By Gary Kjellgren
