Savannah Resources completes drilling at Ravene

Savannah Resources announced on Wednesday that it has completed drilling at the Ravene deposit in Mozambique, which forms part of the Mutamba mineral sands project being developed by Savannah and Rio Tinto as part of a consortium agreement.

The AIM-traded company said it has completed a total of 107 drill holes for a total of 2,914m at the Ravene deposit over a 21km strike of potentially mineralised sand dunes.

It targeted high-grade zones where past drilling has returned results of up to 14.7% total heavy minerals, and it said drilling was carried out on a 1,000m by 500m grid to infill existing drilling carried out by Rio Tinto previously.

The results will be used to estimate an initial inferred resource over the Ravene prospect to potentially increase the Mutamba Project's recently defined initial indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate of 3.5 billion tonnes at 3.8% total heavy minerals.

All samples from the drilling are currently being analysed for their heavy mineral concentration, Savannah’s board confirmed, with the analysis expected to be completed in February and results available thereafter.

The results of the resource estimation will be fast tracked and included into the commissioned scoping study, which is currently underway.

“The completion of this fast-paced resource definition drilling programme highlights the capabilities of Savannah's in-country operations team,” said CEO David Archer.

“The programme was planned to more precisely define the high-grade zones of total heavy minerals at the Ravene deposit, which we believe could increase the current global indicated and inferred mineral resource inventory of 3.5 billion tonnes at 3.8% total heavy minerals at the Mutamba Project North.

“We look forward to receiving the drill results in the coming weeks, which we intend to include in our scoping study for the project, which is underway and continues to progress well.”