Savannah Resource posts encouraging results in Oman copper exploration

03/09/2014 00:59 AST

AIM London-listed international mining firm Savannah Resources plc has announced that it had received positive results from the recent reprocessing of a Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic airborne survey (VTEM) at its highly prospective, 870km² Block 5 and Block 6 copper project located in the prospective, copper rich Samayil Ophiolite Belt in northern Oman.

Savannah has interests in two copper projects in the highly prospective Samayil Ophiolite Belt. The projects, which have an Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.7Mt @ 2.2 per cent copper and high grade intercepts of up to 56.35m at 6.21 per cent Cu, provide Savannah with an excellent opportunity to potentially evolve into a mid-tier copper producer in a relatively short time frame. Together with its Omani partners, Savannah aims to outline further mineral resources to provide the critical mass for a central operating plant to develop the deposits. Savannah’s CEO, David Archer said, “We are particularly pleased with these highly encouraging results from the reprocessing of the 2010 VTEM data. We are buoyed by the fact that in most cases throughout the world individual VMS deposits very rarely occur by themselves and these new results point towards the real possibility that a number of clusters of VMS deposits are present within the tenements.

“These early results underscore Savannah’s strategy, that through the application of systematic exploration, an excellent opportunity exists in Oman to build a significant mid-tier copper producer around the development of clusters of moderate to high grade copper deposits utilising a central processing facility.

“Oman is a well-developed country with excellent infrastructure and a favourable overall development setting. The Project benefits from close proximity to a major deep sea port, bitumen roads across the licence areas and adjacent power lines, low fuel and labour costs, in addition to a favourable fiscal and tax regime.’’

Defined prospects within Block 5 and Block 6 are at a variety of stages of exploration from preliminary evaluation up to advanced exploration and require detailed review and analysis to determine the next steps in the exploration programmes.

Savannah will initially be focussed on evaluating potential open pittable targets at Block 5 during the first two years of exploration using a multi-layered approach including detailed geological and regolith mapping, stratigraphy, structure, geochemistry and geophysics to delineate prospects.

Savannah’s multi-faceted exploration programme is now well underway with a view to commencing drilling in Q4 of 2014. Phase 1 of this programme is now complete and the data is being analysed, according to the company.

In addition, Savannah owns a 21.1 per cent strategic shareholding in Alecto Minerals Plc which provides Savannah with exposure to both the highly prospective Kossanto Gold Project in the prolific Kenieba inlier in Mali and also to the Wayu Boda and Aysid Meketel gold / base metal projects in Ethiopia for which Alecto has a joint venture with Centamin Plc. Under this joint venture, Centamin Plc is committing up to $14m in exploration funding to earn up to 70 per cent of each project.

Oman Daily Observer