Fresh off bonanza copper intercepts at Flat Mine East, the diamond rigs moved to FMS for confirmation drilling and delivered 43m at 3.41% copper from 550m, including 20.5m at 4.99%.
The hole, drilled 10m from an historical hole that returned 38.98m at 2.16% from 574m, intersected a broader halo of 62m at 2.51%.
A second hole returned 32m at 0.63% from 428m, including 6m at 0.9%. Two further assays are pending.
FMS was a virgin blind discovery that remains open for 200m down-dip and has become a focus for mine planning as Orion prepares to restart operations after decades in mothballs.
It lies 3km from FME and provides more evidence that the Flat Mines complex contains very high-grade copper sulphide mineralisation within a wider moderate-grade intrusive.
FME delivered a ‘globally significant’ 49m at 4.89% copper from 231m, including 10m at 12.47% in April.
Managing director Errol Smart said he was encouraged by the potential to rapidly add high-grade tonnes from near-surface bodies such as Flat Mine Nababeep, with the upside taking shape down-dip and along-trend of the existing mine plan.
A bankable feasibility study is being finalised based only on the defined resources of 9.4Mt at 1.3%.
“Our aspirational target is to restore our Okiep properties to their historic production levels of 20,000-50,000 tonnes of copper production per annum, which previous owners maintained for over five decades,” Smart said.
“Our ongoing drilling results underscore this potential.”
More than 105Mt was mined from Okiep over 100 years, with mining winding down in the 1990s.
The rigs are now infilling FMN to confirm the inferred resource of 1Mt at 1.4% copper.
Orion recently raised A$7.7 million at 1.5c via a placement, and it has an open share purchase plan seeking up to $5 million on the same terms.
Orion has been working on its flagship Prieska project for many years and is already conducting some trial mining, but it’s hoping to develop Okiep to allow the company to become a 50,000-60,000tpa copper miner by the end of the decade.
The Northern Cape region was once a major copper producer, but “just a drip” comes out now.
Smart wants to change that.
