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Cobre Limited (ASX:CBE) has officially commenced its Q2 CY2024 drilling campaign with diamond-tipped rigs firing up on-site the company’s Botswana-based Okavango copper play.
Wholly owned by Cobre, the landholding straddles the prolific Kalahari Copper Belt (KCB).
Geotechs are going for a 2,000m program to find not only silver but any evidence of silver mineralisation that may also be present.
Drillers are hopeful they can replicate the results of a drillhole sunk in 2019 which returned intersections of “elevated copper.”
That the project is along strike from MMG’s US$1.9B Khoemacau copper project Cobre hopes can also boost its own project valuation, given silver-copper found at the former.
MMG boasts a 166Mt JORC at 2% copper and 26g/t of silver.
Cobre expects its Q2 campaign to wrap up in June.
“This phase of work forms part of the company’s strategy to advance immediate targets while progressing its in-situ copper recovery development opportunity at the Ngami Copper Project and exploring for tier 1 targets as part of the 2024 BHP Xplor programme,” Cobre CEO Adam Wooldridge said.
BHP’s (ASX:BHP) Xplor initiative sees it replicating the WA state government’s exploration incentive scheme from a private sector angle; providing funds to support exploration conducted by juniors BHP considers might be promising.
“The objective of the current programme will be to prove that anomalous copper-silver mineralisation continues into OCP demonstrating potential for new discoveries in proximity to [MMG’s landholding,]” Wooldridge added.
Cobre was one of the most hotly watched junior miner stocks through 2022.
CBE shares were up 7.4% to 5.8cps on Wednesday.
