Bezant prepares for next steps after completing exploration review at Buffalo

Copper-gold exploration and development company Bezant announced on Wednesday that its geological survey team has completed an exploration review on the 398 hectare Buffalo copper-gold project in the Central Zambian iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) belt, over which it held a conditional option to acquire a 50% interest.

The AIM-traded firm said the review identified a zone of structural focus centred on a site of artisanal copper-gold mining activity within the Buffalo open pit.

That supported the prospective nature of a mineralised structure traversing the project's licence area, which it said was seemingly open at depth.

“The Buffalo project is located within a major east-northeast west-southwest structural corridor in the Central Zambian IOCG province,” the Bezant board said in its statement.

“Approximately 70 kilometres to the south west along the structural corridor lies the Jifumpa copper mine, currently operated by a Chinese enterprise, Ruida Investments.

“Deposits in this province are generally hosted at a higher stratigraphic level within the same rock package as the world-class Zambian copper belt deposits.”

Bezant said the IOCG province was previously subject to only limited exploration due to the focus on the long-established projects located on the copper belt.

“Nevertheless, such historic exploration resulted in the discovery of several significant copper deposits, including the Kalengwa mine and the Kitumba deposit.

“In other global mining districts, major projects have been brought into development hosted within similar IOCG structures including BHP's giant Olympic Dam mine located in South Australia.”

Bezant said its exploration team was assessing the structural characteristics of the Buffalo project in order to determine the style and continuity of the mineralisation evident in the exposed mine pit.

The majority of its work was focused on the currently-mined open pit zone, where copper and gold mineralisation was being recovered by small scale, artisanal miners for direct sale to local processors.

It said the north west wall of the pit comprised semi-massive limestone/dolomite and conglomerate/breccia, while the south east wall of the pit was formed of a complex series of banded siltstones and brecciated mudstones.

At the Buffalo project site, the geological survey team identified visible copper oxide mineralisation at surface across the open pit area, with no sulphides identified to date.

Many of the rocks in the pit were said to be “strongly” sheared, altered and mineralised.

The board said the alteration and mineralisation comprised mainly silicification, hematisation and malachite enrichment, both disseminated and occurring within breccia matrix.

Malachite was said to be “particularly noteworthy” in a three-to-four metre wide core zone of the 12-to-15 metre wide shear.

It was also noted within the matrix of a silicified mudstone breccia on the southeast side of the pit and in the sidewalls to the shear, mainly confined to fractures.

“During the recent site visit, some further selective rock grab sampling was carried out within the mineralised shear for which assay results are currently awaited,” Bezant said.

“A sample was also taken from a silicified outcrop broadly along the south west strike trend of the shear zone.”

As the company had previously announced, a selective grab sample taken from the pit in November assayed at 3.17% copper and 0.97 grams per tonne gold.

The company said a review of the available historic data indicated some limited underground exploration development.

Pitting, trenching and underground exploration in the 1920s by the Rhodesian Congo Border Concession identified a zone grading at 6% copper.

Four holes were also drilled by Chartered Exploration in the 1960s.

Bezant said it appeared that such holes were drilled a little to the east of the current pit face, and explained that the best intercept reported was 28 metres at 1.07% copper, including six metres at 1.87% copper.

A deeper hole beneath that cut several narrow copper-bearing intervals, and a short vertical hole was also evident on an historic section with an assay interval of 7.9 metres at 14.32% copper.

The board said that was presumed to have been drilled directly into the near-vertical mineralised and oxidised shear.

More recent exploration activity in the region by Avmin Ventures since the year 2000 included soil sampling and the drilling of three holes to test soil geochemistry anomalies.

One of those, hole BH-B/2, was sited to test the Buffalo target, although its exact location was not known and the board said it was apparently drilled oblique to the target zone.

No mineralisation was recorded, while another hole was drilled at the Buffalo West target, although its precise location was also unclear.

Bezant said it conclusions from the review of the historic data and extensive site visit were that the steeply-dipping target shear zone was open at depth, and also remained open to the south west into the Buffalo hill.

Continuity of the mineralised zone was currently being established by the survey team, to determine the strike extent of the mineralised target zone across the licence area.

It said it was recommended that detailed geological mapping be carried out in the pit and the immediate surrounding area, supplemented by systematic chip and channel sampling.

Although the shear zone at the top of the hill was weathered and copper was leached, the company said it should be possible to map the continuation of the structure by trenching.

Assuming positive results from that additional work, a follow-up drill programme could then be proposed.

The firm said it team now aimed to consolidate and process the existing data against the exposed mining works present at Buffalo.

The extent of the strike potential would be more fully assessed in terms of southwesterly extension and depth.

One of the key elements of that further work could be to compare the data obtained from the site visit with the known characteristics of the IOCG mining operations in the region

“Our option over 50% of Buffalo offers entry into a promising copper-gold project with access to a range of existing data sets and with exposed mineralisation from artisanal mining activity,” said chief executive officer Laurence Read.

“In addition to assessing the potential for extensions at depth and across the licence area, our key ongoing work will centre on the characteristics of Buffalo as an ore body.

“Whilst IOCG structures globally host major copper producers such as the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, the Zambian IOCG province has to date been under explored due to the existing production hub centred around the country's main historic copper belt.”