African Pioneer (AFP.L) has released an updated resource estimate for the Ongombo copper project in Namibia. The updated indicated resource category now contains 5.7 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.94% copper, 0.23 g/t gold and 4.4 g/t silver for a total of approximately 120 million tonnes of copper, 42,000 ounces of gold and 800,000 ounces of gold. Most of these resources will have to be mined using underground mining techniques but the indicated resource includes 0.93 million tonnes of rock with an average grade of 0.68% copper-equivalent (consisting of 0.57% copper, 0.19 g/t gold and 2.6 g/t silver). The image below shows the attributable stake of African Pioneer in the project (85%).
On top of the 5.7 million tonnes in the indicated resource estimate, the 85% owned Ongombo project also contains about 23 million tonnes in the inferred resource category at an average grade of 1.1% copper-equivalent (consisting of 0.95% copper, 0.24 g/t gold and 5.8 g/t silver, a cutoff grade of 0.50% CuEq was applied here). This means the inferred resource contains about half a billion pounds of copper, 180,000 ounces gold and 4.3 million ounces of silver. This means the updated resource now contains in excess of 200 million additional pounds of copper and almost 100,000 additional ounces of gold. The company will continue to twin historical holes to re-assay some zones for their gold values and adding more gold to the resource could bode well for the potential economics of the project.
African Pioneer also just completed a 790,000 GBP placement with new shares priced at 2.25 pence.
Disclosure: The author has no position in African Pioneer. Please read our disclaimer.
