Abenab Project
Abenab Vanadium-Lead-Zinc Project
Golden Deeps is accelerating development of the Abenab Vanadium-Lead-Zinc Project, of which it holds an 80% interest and is on track to enter production in 2020.
Abenab Vandium-Lead-Zinc Project covers 35km of the prospective Abenab mineralised trend and is located on existing Exploration Prospecting Licences held in the Otavi Mountain Land (OML), north east Namibia, an area roughly bounded by a triangle linking the towns of Tsumeb, Grootfontein and Otavi. The region is a globally significant base metal province with production from several mines including the now closed Tsumeb, Kombat and Berg Aukas.
The region is well served by sealed roads, rail to port, high voltage power, telephone lines and water, and is close to major towns and mining processing facilities.
The Abenab landholding stands at 102.51 km2 with further areas under application. Golden Deeps has two Exclusive Prospecting Licences (EPLs) currently undergoing a statutory renewal process (EPL5496 and 3543) and three EPL (EPL5232, 5233 and 5234). Following renewal, the area of EPL5496 and 3543 will be 53.28Km2.
On its tenements, Golden Deeps holds two of the five historically important mines of the Otavi Mountain Land – Abenab and Abenab West (formerly known as Christiana). Both mines have only been tested over short strike lengths, with significant exploration upside available to the Company.
There are three recognised base metal trends with extensive strike lengths located within the tenement package, namely the Abenab, Khusib, and Pavian Trends.
The Abenab Project contains an Inferred Mineral Resource of 2.80Mt @ 0.66% V2O5 (vanadium pentoxide), 2.35% Pb (lead), 0.94% Zn (zinc) at a 0.2% V2O5 cut-off (announced January 2019).
The Project comprises three key areas – the surface mineralisation and tailings (from previous production), the existing previously producing open cut mine and potential underground workings.
GED is currently working to extend and prove up the surface mineralised materials and tailings (not currently included in the reported Inferred Mineral Resource).
Abenab Development Pathway
Moving towards production, it is Golden Deeps, operational strategy to process existing surface mineralised materials and tailings followed by the development of below ground mineral resources.
Key activities the Company is currently undertaking include:
- Further testing of stockpiles, dumps and tailings to identify and prove up additional surface mineralised material
- Ongoing metallurgical test work of surface mineralised materials and tailings to optimize process flow sheet
- Detailed engineering study to develop a 250,000 tpa modular concentrator process plant to produce high value concentrate for supply to third party contract refineries
- Identification and firm pricing for refining of concentrate from existing low-cost contract refineries
