Exploration
Kinsevere (DRC)
Overview
Kinsevere is set to become Anvil's biggest investment in the DRC. The project will include a major open cut mining operation, a heavy media separation plant, an electric arc furnace and a 60,000 tonnes per year Solvent Extraction and Electrowinning ("SX-EW") copper facility.
In January 2007, the Company announced an updated Mineral Resource estimate for its Kinsevere project of 20.1 million tonnes of ore at an average grade of 4.3% for 865,300 tonnes of contained copper. This represented a 310% increase in contained copper in estimated Measured and Indicated resources in comparison to the previous Kinsevere Mineral Resource estimate of November 2005.
Recent exploration initiatives have played a major role in Anvil's recent decision to expand the operation. Some of the key elements of the program were:
- a 17,220 metre drilling program of the major Tshifufia deposit
- an extended test of the sulphide resource at Tshifufia
- revised surface geology interpretation at Tshifufia/Tshifufiamashi
- a discovery rate of 72 tonnes of copper per cubic metre drilled and
- a discovery cost of $2.61 per tonne
The current focus for Exploration at Kinsevere is the extension of the oxide resource base as far as possible.
Tenements
The Kinsevere Project portfolio is comprised of two mining licenses (Permis d'Exploitations), PE528 and 539, which cover a combined area of 29.6km
2. Both of these licenses are owned by Gécamines, but, having completed a Feasibility Study on the three known deposits on PE528; AMCK (a JV company formed between Anvil and Mining Company Katanga), signed a Lease Agreement with Gécamines in December 2005, which sets out a schedule of royalties, payable to Gécamines, based on the tonnes of both copper and cobalt mined.
There are three known deposits located on PE528 (Kinsevere) and one deposit on PE539 (Nambulwa). To date, Anvil has only explored and evaluated the deposits on PE528.
Geology
The three deposits at Kinsevere are named, from north to south, Tshifufiamashi, Tshifufia and Kinsevere Hill. They are hosted by what appear to be two separate "mega-fragments" of prospective stratigraphy (Lower Roan Supergroup/Mines Group), which are surrounded by younger sediments of the Kundelungu Supergroup, of the Katangan System. Lithologically, the deposits occur in a mixed sequence of siliciclastic and carbonate rocks, which are typical hosts to Katangan Copperbelt mineralization.
Most of the Kinsevere Mineral Resource defined to date (in all three deposits) is oxide ore, which forms a thick (>100m) supergene blanket that overlies sulphide mineralisation. The dominant copper oxide minerals are malachite (carbonate) and pseudo-malachite (phosphate), which are disseminated throughout the host rock, or as veins and/or veinlets that sometimes coalesce into prominent "clots". Heterogenite (cobalt oxide) is sometimes inter-grown with the copper, but is always a minor component of the ore.
The dominant copper sulphide mineral of the primary ore is chalcopyrite, but minor bornite, chalcocite, and cuprite also occur, along with native copper and pyrite. Most of this mineralisation occurs in veins and veinlets that often cross-cut bedding.
All three of the deposits are interpreted to be examples of structurally modified stratiform copper mineralization, which has weathered to form a supergene blanket of oxide ore.
Exploration History
Since the exploration program began in late 2004, Anvil has completed the following:
- Surface trenching program - confirmed historical results of Gécamines
- Phase 1 drilling program in 2005 to define a preliminary resource for all three Kinsevere deposits, comparable to the original declaration of Gécamines
- Phase 2 drilling program in 2006 to increase the defined resource at the Tshifufia deposit