Savannah Resources (LON:SAV) has estimated its Oman licences contain a maximum 700,000 tonnes of copper and 360,000 ounces of gold after a review of historical exploration data.
An analysis of 100,000m of historical drilling data indicated tonnages in a range of 10.7mln to 29.3mln at a copper grade of 1.4% to 2.4% and gold between 0.2 and 0.4ppm.
On that basis, metal of between 150,000 and 700,000 tonnes of copper and 60,000 and 360,000 gold ounces was indicated.
Savannah owns a 65% shareholding in Al Fairuz Mining, the owner of the Block 5 licence, and is earning, via agreed expenditure milestones, a 65% shareholding in Al Thuraya, which owns Block 4.
It wants to start producing copper from multiple deposits on Blocks 4 and 5 from late 2017,
While today’s target were only conceptual targets, the intensity of drilling into most of these deposits had given it a good degree of confidence that with more drilling programmes it would find sufficient metal.
David Archer, chief executive, added: "We have successfully brought together and analysed a very large body of primary data and defined feasible Exploration Targets, work which underscores the potential of Blocks 4 and 5 as a possible hub for copper mine development.
“The availability of the historic drilling was not only highly cost-effective for the company, with such drilling estimated to cost US$20mln at today's prices, but importantly significantly shortens the time required to advance the project. “