Latest news with #NPF-D'Kar
West Australian
22-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Noronex, South32 JV gears up to drill for Namibian copper
Noronex Limited and its joint venture partner South32 are gearing up to kick off a 7000-metre drilling program in search of copper at their joint Humpback-Damara project in the southwestern African country of Namibia. A contract has been signed for an extensive drilling campaign, which the joint venture partners expect to begin next month and complete early next year. The program is part of an agreed $3 million exploration campaign to be conducted at the JV's Namibian projects this financial year. The program is targeting new, large-scale copper discoveries in the Kalahari Copper Belt. It will test the mineralised contact on major domal structures across several prospects, where anomalous mineralisation was encountered in previous limited drilling programs. South32, through a subsidiary company, is bankrolling the drilling at Humpback-Damara under an existing earn-in and joint venture agreement. The agreement requires the globally diversified mining and metals company to spend $3 million per year for five years, with a minimum $15 million spend earning the company a 60 per cent interest in the Namibian project, which Noronex manages. Management says its exploration program is gathering momentum. Noronex's upcoming drilling program will target the Humpback project, the company recently completed drilling at its Fiesta project and it is planning a diamond drilling campaign at its new Oosterwald prospect. Three diamond drill holes have been completed at Fiesta, in the west of the Humpback ground, with assay results pending. The Fiesta project is on the western closure of a domal structure at the prospective NPF-D'Kar contact. Anomalous copper intercepts at the site appear to have many of the hallmarks found in large deposits in Botswana, more than 400 kilometres east, including at Chinese miner MMG's long-life Khoemacau copper-silver mine, which contains 370 million tonnes at a stellar copper-equivalent grade of 1.7 per cent. The copper mineralisation is hosted as disseminated chalcocite, chalcopyrite and bornite in a sequence of shales and siltstones of D'Kar sediments. The diamond rig has now moved to the prospective Oosterwald target, part of Humpback-Damara, at the company's recently granted ground. Drilling will target a potentially buried domal position of the D'Kar and Ngwako Pan formation contact. Management believes an uneroded dome provides scope for a large deposit in a fully preserved structural setting. A planned hole will test an anomalous Heli-electromagnetic (EM) target from a historical Heli-EM airborne survey completed by ASX-listed Sandfire Resources in 2022, flown to better understand the depth of cover and effectiveness of airborne EM surveys across the ground. Noronex will also probe with the drill-bit at its Powerline project, where it has designed a reverse circulation program to test large antiformal features outlined by a previous aeromagnetic survey. Key target areas are where the NPF-D'Kar contact is predicted in the anticlinal hinge zone, similar to the placement of operating copper mines in Botswana, which are found in hinge zones. Previous limited drilling returned anomalous intercepts at the NPF-D'Kar contact. Previous exploration by several firms defined regional targets, identified as T1 to T16. Plans for a program of detailed magnetic grids and profiles will begin shortly to help drill targeting. Noronex lodged two new applications with Botswana's mines department earlier this year through a fully owned subsidiary company to increase its holdings in the country by almost 1500 square kilometres, adjacent to the Humpback-Damara project on the Namibian side of the border. The two new Botswana tenements were catapulted into the strategic alliance under the same financial terms as its Namibian projects, enabling South32 to bump up the JV ante and contribute a further $1 million per year for five years. The additional contribution will lift South32's annual funding obligation to the strategic alliance to $4 million per annum, or a minimum $20 million over five years, to earn a 60 per cent stake in the agreed projects and tenement area. Noronex will receive the annual $4 million payment in $1 million instalments paid at the beginning of each quarter to cover the expected management, drilling and exploration costs incurred under its watch, providing a reliable cash flow boost for the junior explorer. The vast new Botswana ground sits in the northern section of the Kalahari Copper Belt and brings Noronex's total landholdings within the belt to nearly 10,000 square kilometres. Noronex also holds a 95 per cent interest in the Witvlei project in Namibia, containing a 10-million-tonne resource at 1.3 per cent copper. The company also recently kick-started a six-week radioactive spectrometry survey across 17.9 square kilometres of its Etango North uranium project in Namibia. The survey is designed to hunt for high-grade hard rock uranium, known as alaskite, in one of the world's most fertile uranium neighbourhoods. Noronex's ground is just 3km north of Bannerman Energy's giant 225-million-pound Etango deposit and immediately south of major operations, such as the Rossing and Husab mines. Both Noronex and South32 appear to believe Namibia is the land of opportunity and it will be interesting to see what develops from the many exploration programs on-the-go in the mineral-rich African nation. Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact:
West Australian
01-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Noronex finds high-grade copper in deep Namibian diamond holes
Noronex Limited's recent deep diamond drilling program in the western lens of its Namibian Fiesta project has identified two significant copper intercepts, including an 11-metre hit assaying 0.5 per cent copper and 6m at 0.7 per cent copper. The 11m intercept from 371m also includes 18 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, while the 6m hit from 455m includes 15g/t silver. The company believes the two intercepts show two parallel tabular zones of mineralisation sandwiched within two bedded, altered, chlorite-rich green shales, which oriented core data confirms as being nearly vertical. Some small-scale fault offsetting or a steep southerly dip is also likely. The headline hole was designed as an extension of an existing reverse circulation (RC) hole to step out and test at depth below a previous 33m intercept in February which delivered a good run of 33m assaying 0.81 per cent copper and 31g/t silver from 265m. The hole also included 4m at 2.01 per cent copper and 83g/t silver from 265m and 4m assaying 2.27 per cent copper and 87g/t silver from 277m. The headline 11m intercept lies almost directly below the previous 33m intercept, while the hole's second 6m intercept appears to have pierced a new, deeper copper-rich body, not penetrated by any previous drilling. Noronex has also drilled an open vertical water bore to supply its diamond drilling program at another hole, which intersected shallow mineralisation. The company expects samples from the open hole may contain some down-hole contamination. However, it recorded 1m at 0.9 per cent copper and 3g/t silver from 113m, 9m grading 0.63 per cent copper and 21g/t silver from 120m, and 3m going 1 per cent copper and 4g/t silver from 137m. Significantly, copper mineralisation is noted at the base of weathering, which can be an important clue to mineralisation potential in poorly understood copper regions, as copper is highly mobile in oxide/supergene zones. The company drilled three further holes across a gravity low but did not intersect significant mineralisation. Fiesta lies on the western closure of a domal structure at the prospective NPF-D'Kar contact. Drilling so far has returned highly encouraging intercepts, which the current program aims to extend. The anomalous intercepts appear to share characteristics with copper deposits identified in Botswana, more than 400km east, including MMG's giant Khoemacau copper project, which contains a 450-million-tonne mineral resource grading 1.4 per cent copper and 14g/t silver. Steeply dipping sheet-like bodies of copper and related silver mineralisation at Fiesta have been defined over a strike length of more than 4.5 kilometres. They appear to coincide with shear zones where copper is hosted as disseminated chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite in a sequence of shales and siltstones of the prospective D'Kar sediments. In shallower holes, including the new water bore, the company recorded copper oxides such as malachite and lower silver signatures, likely due to silver compounds dissolving in the oxide zone. The drilling program is funded by Noronex's South32 earn-in agreement. The company has so far completed two diamond drill holes at Fiesta, at the western extent of the company's Humpback project tenure. Two more holes are planned. Noronex is waiting on the results from a diamond hole that extended a previous RC hole from 250m to 497.7m to better understand the style and orientation of mineralisation underneath and at depth. That previous RC hole delivered 7m assaying 0.35 per cent copper and 23g/t silver from 139m and 30m running 0.56 per cent copper and 62g/t silver from 158m. Diamond drilling is ongoing in a hole designed to provide oriented information on an anomalous 2023 reverse circulation intercept that delivered 45m at 0.8 per cent copper and 3g/t silver from 144m and 7m at 0.49 per cent copper and 145g/t silver from 233m. Noronex believes the region is prospective and further exploration is likely to continue. For now, the company will continue drilling at Fiesta and its surrounding prospects with the welcome assistance of recent improvements in the weather and drilling performance. Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact:
