Hana Mining Ltd. has announce positive drilling results from the completion of the 2012 drill programme at the Ghanzi sediment hosted Copper-Silver Project in Botswana.
Through the year, a total of 201 holes were drilled over 40,692.66 metres at Zones 2, 4, 5, 6 and Banana Zone. Of the 201 holes, 119 holes totaling 23,599.49 metres were drilled to improve the confidence of known mineralisation and the remainder for exploration. Both exploration and definition infill drilling have exceeded Hana’s expectations for continuous high-grade mineralization over wide intersections.
This latest announcement reports results from infill drilling at Northeast Fold (“NEF”), a subzone of Hana’s primary Banana Zone deposit and Zone 5 where strong copper and silver mineralization from both deposits will likely lead to an increase in the resource estimate.
The infill drilling at NEF included 29 holes over 5,987.80 metres and focused on confirming historical assay results, Quality Assurance and Quality Control of the holes inherited by Hana. These new results have confirmed that the historical drill holes are comparable and similar to current data. As well, Hana has defined the upper end of the plunging fold nose with more detail to delineate the style and increase the confidence levels on the lower, high-grade mineralized zone within the Ngwako Pan Footwall Sandstones.
Zone 5 has returned outstanding results from 63 drill holes over 15,555.21 metres of drilling and mapping a strike length of 2 kilometres. The programme not only has provided solid results towards increasing the confidence of the mineral estimate class to indicated, but has also discovered a consistent trend of high grade copper-silver mineralization at depth. Results from four drill holes completed at depth are pending.
Copper equivalent calculated using US$3.00/lb Cu, US$30/oz Ag and is not adjusted for metallurgical recoveries. The formula used is as follows: CuEq = Cu% + (Ag g/t x 0.01458).
Hana Mining President and CEO, Marek Kreczmer says the drill program this year has been very successful.
“We satisfied our primary infill drilling objectives for advancing the quality and confidence of the known mineralized areas. As well, we were very pleased to also discover high grades from the infill drilling and a brand new area of consistent high-grade copper-silver mineralization at Zone 5, which will increase the resource size and positions Zone 5 as a valuable source of high-grade mineralization to a mining operation”.
He says Zone 5, and the results received so far from Zone 6 have shifted our vision for a mine plan at the Ghanzi project.
“While our PEA demonstrated an economically viable mine plan rooted at the Banana Zone, the quality of the mineralization emerging at these zones suggest that the economics would improve with shifting the mine plan to commence production at these deposits. As well, the proximity of Zone 5 and Zone 6 to the operations at the Boseto processing facility, contribute to the concept of a long and lucrative mine operation as predicted for the Kalahari Copper Belt. “
