Apollo Minerals Ltd (ASX:AON) has calculated an initial exploration target that demonstrates the potential for the 100%-owned Kroussou Zinc-Lead Project in Gabon to be a “Super Giant base metal project”.
The conceptual target reported in accordance with the JORC Code (2012) consists of between approximately 140 and 300 million tonnes at a grade between 2.0% and 3.4% zinc plus lead has been described as globally significant.
What’s even more encouraging for the company is that this initial exploration target has been defined from only six of the 23 target prospects.
Kroussou 2022 exploration target summary.
“Super-giant” scale potential
Apollo Minerals’ managing director Neil Inwood said: “Kroussou’s initial exploration target demonstrates the project has the scale potential to be a super-giant base metal project and feature amongst the most significant undeveloped zinc and lead projects globally.
"It is exciting to note that the initial target only includes six of the 23 target prospects defined to date and there is strong growth potential.
“The recently completed airborne electromagnetic survey has assisted in the delineation of additional targets over prospects where we have not previously drilled.
"This data will be used to drive further discovery across the 135 kilometres of largely untested strike, by providing additional structural context to the mineralisation and is expected to accelerate our exploration work.”
Open pit mining potential
Providing even further optimism on Kroussou’s development prospects is that zinc and lead mineralisation is shallow across the target areas with an average depth of only 15 metres, indicating the potential for simple open pit mining extraction.
The company has also confirmed “excellent” metallurgy with high recoveries and quality saleable zinc and lead concentrates.
“Kroussou’s advantages go beyond sheer scale,” Inwood said. “We are finding near-surface mineralisation, which is potentially easy to mine, with extremely positive simple metallurgy in a mining-friendly jurisdiction with excellent infrastructure.
“We have a great team who are extremely motivated to be working on a globally significant mining project.”
Initial exploration target regions displaying drill hole collars and example sections.
Exploration target conceptual
The potential quantity and grade of the exploration target is conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a mineral resource for the target area reported. It is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a resource.
To identify the significance of the exploration and development opportunity at Kroussou, the company commissioned independent mining consultancy ResourcesWA Pty Ltd to estimate an initial JORC-compliant exploration target.
This was estimated across only the six target prospects at Kroussou where modern diamond drilling has been completed.
In addition, these six targets also have geological mapping, geochemical (soils) and geophysical (airborne electromagnetic (AEM), airborne magnetics and/or passive seismic) datasets to support the geological models.
These combined data sets were used by ResourcesWA to create a geological and mineralisation concept model across the six prospects and to define the initial exploration target.
This endowment range ranks the project as having significant potential when compared to other zinc-lead deposits as indicated below:
A graph of combined zinc+lead grade and metal endowment as mid-point values of peer project exploration targets.
About Kroussou
Kroussou is in southwest Gabon on the central west African coast. The project is about 220 kilometres south of the capital Libreville within the Ngounié Province and consists of two permits (G4-569 and G4-456) which are 100% owned by the company and cover 2,363 square kilometres.
The project features a 135-kilometre strike length along the prospective contact between the Cretaceous Cotier Basin to the west and Archaean/Proterozoic basement to the east.
Historical discovery of multiple zinc-lead mineral occurrences in the southern 85 kilometres of the project has validated the province-scale potential and the company has recently identified additional targets in the newly granted northern prospect.
Twenty-three zinc-lead target prospects have been identified at Kroussou of which only six have been drill tested.
Location of Kroussou in Gabon with regional transport infrastructure.
Next steps
The immediate work program at Kroussou is focused on expanding the company’s exploration footprint and advancing understanding of the development pathway for the project.
Planned work includes:
- Analysis of regional drilling and exploration completed at TP13, TP9 and TP8 in preparation for the 2023 field season.
- Additional surface exploration programs at additional target prospects comprising soil sampling, geological mapping, rock chip sampling to generate new targets.
- Drill targeting to test mineralised trends in the target prospects included in the defined exploration target. This work is envisaged to include infill and extensional drilling at TP11, and phase 2 drill testing at TP13 and TP6.
- Further drill testing of multiple targets across the project area after ranking and prioritisation considering additional targets added with acquiring the Keri permit.
- Resource and technical studies to assess the viability of a future mining operation.