Noronex dives into 10,000m drilling program at Namibian copper project

Copper explorer Noronex has started a 10,000m RC drilling campaign across its 78,000ha of licences along the prolific Kalahari Copper Belt that spans Namibia and Botswana.

The drilling at the Witvlei project will focus on the Otjiwaru, Dalheim, Gemboksvlei, Okasewa and Christiadore prospects and will test five high priority targets including:

Sub-cropping copper at Dalheim with 2km strike extent;
Chargeability IP anomalies at Gemboksvlei on a 1km copper soil zone;
Outcropping copper at Otjiwaru over an 800m wide zone;
A 2.5km by 1.2km copper in soil anomaly in an altered structural zone south of Okasewa; and
Unexplained copper soil anomalies at Christiadore prospect.

Noronex Limited (ASX:NRX) has kicked off drilling at Otjiwaru, with the aim to define the style and character of the geology and mineralisation at the prospect.

IP survey underway

The company has completed a dipole-dipole IP survey at the Gembocksvlei project and is currently collecting three lines across the Okasewa project.

The lines cover known mineralisation at the resource to define its IP response and will also cover the untested soil geochemical anomalies along strike from EM conductors identified with the recent airborne EM survey.

Solid copper opportunity

The project has a current JORC (2012) resource of 10 million tonnes at 1.3% copper in four deposits, which Noronex says highlights the potential for high grade, near surface copper. Noronex controls over 50kms of the well known but underexplored Kalahari Copper Belt which runs for several hundred kilometres from central Namibia into Botswana.

Noronex has recruited former senior Sandfire executives, Bruce Hooper and Robert Klug who both have an extensive understanding of the region and its sedimentary copper style of mineralisation. The team were integral in Sandfire’s $160m takeover of Mod Resources Ltd (ASX: MOD) in 2019. Mod’s key asset of interest was its T3 copper deposit on the Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana where Sandfire is currently spending US$250m on developing a 40mt at 0.9% Cu open pit project.

The company also has a promising copper project in Ontario, Canada, and sees a solid opportunity in copper, with exploration success and new discoveries over the last decade at historically low levels.

Plus, copper is a commodity with strong market fundamentals, with mine grades globally declining and demand being driven by industrialisation and electrification.

Noronex is well placed to build high-value copper resources across its projects for the future supply shortfall.

This article was developed in collaboration with Noronex Limited, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.