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Orion Minerals discovers copper-zinc bearing massive sulphide body in South Africa

Published: 02:59 28 Nov 2018 GMT

drill core
Orion’s shares are trading about 9% higher intra-day, at 2.5 cents

Orion Minerals Ltd (ASX:ORN) has discovered a new copper-zinc bearing massive sulphide body in close proximity to its flagship Prieska Zinc-Copper Project in South Africa.

The discovery hole, OAXD002, was drilled at the Ayoba Prospect, a satellite exploration target, and is both the first exploration hole drilled as part of Orion’s near-mine exploration project and the first hole to test for new mineralisation surrounding the historical Prieska Mine in more than 36 years.

Diamond drill-hole OAXD002 intersected 10.55 metres of sulphide mineralisation, including 5.17 metres of massive sulphides (>70% sulphides) from a down-hole depth of 653.2 metres.

Sulphide mineralisation in OAXD002

Significantly, the identification of copper (chalcopyrite) and zinc (sphalerite) associated with the massive sulphide mineralisation, and with host lithology similar to that of the Prieska Deposit, suggests the discovery of a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit.

Orion managing director and CEO Errol Smart said: “The discovery at Ayoba is a very important breakthrough, which clearly demonstrates the potential for large satellite deposits to be discovered in close proximity to our advanced Prieska Zinc-Copper Project.

READ: Orion Minerals puts in 131,000+ hours at Prieska mine ahead of March-April DFS

“VMS deposits tend to occur in clusters and yet there has been virtually no exploration outside of the known deposits at Prieska in several decades.

“In fact, this intersection is the first new VMS discovery in the Areachap Belt for the past 36 years.

“This important discovery demonstrates the huge potential to find additional deposits within a 5-10 kilometres radius of the proposed processing plant and mine infrastructure at Prieska, validating our exploration strategy which is aimed at unlocking the value of this rich mineral province.

“It also demonstrates the advantage of using modern geophysical exploration techniques in such a well mineralised VMS terrain and is the deepest ‘blind deposit’ ever discovered in the Areachap.”

Next steps

Logging and sampling of the drill core are currently underway with assays expected in late December 2018.

Further electromagnetic (EM) surveys, including downhole EM, are being planned, before follow-up drilling.

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