African Battery upbeat on Cameroon, disappointed in the Congo

Exploration company African Battery Metals updated the market on its exploration activities in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday, reporting that it had now started exploration work on the licences in Cameroon, which were acquired as part of the purchase of Cobalt Blue Holdings.

The AIM-traded firm said those licences were close to, and in part contiguous with, the Nkamouna cobalt-nickel-manganese project which was historically majority-owned by Geovic Mining Corporation.

It said Nkamouna hosted “one of the world's largest” undeveloped cobalt resource outside the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

African Battery had also acquired key geophysical data, which it said would help identify the source of cobalt-nickel mineralisation observed in the region of the Cameroon licences.

It had also commissioned a desktop report and site visit to the Cameroon licences by Sahara Natural Resources, which it described as a “highly qualified” independent group specialist in African exploration.

The company said it had identified a series of targets on its Cameroon licences for follow-up work, which exhibited the same geological signature displayed by the cobalt-nickel licences historically held by Geovic.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the company said it had received assay results from the auger programme on its part-owned Kisinka licence, which provided “minimal evidence” of cobalt or copper mineralisation.

“I am very excited by the opportunity we have acquired in Cameroon,” said African Battery Minerals chief executive officer Roger Murphy.

“We know from Geovic's past exploration work at Nkamouna, that this area hosts one of the world's largest non-DRC cobalt resources, and that we are in 'elephant country' for cobalt and nickel.

“We believe we understand why the mineralisation is where it is in the licences historically held by Geovic and, as the charts in this release show, we have similar areas within ABM's Cameroon licences.”

Murphy said he “looked forward” to implementing an exploration programme, which he believed should confirm the presence of cobalt and nickel on the Cameroon licences.

“At the same time, I'm disappointed that our work so far on Kisinka in the DRC has not yet provided significant evidence of cobalt or copper mineralisation.

“However, Kisinka is a large licence area in the right area on mapped Roan geology, with large copper-cobalt mines nearby.”

Murphy said the company’s work to date had only covered a “small fraction” of the licence so it therefore could not rule anything out yet.

“We will assess our next steps on Kisinka relative to those for our licences in Ivory Coast and Cameroon.”