Anooraq inks Amplats deal in Bushveld

Vancouver — It used to be that only the powerful South African majors had any hope of holding ground in the Bushveld igneous complex, home to 80% of the world’s known resources of platinum group metals (PGMs). But the political winds have changed in the African nation. For example, Hunter-Dickinson-led junior Anooraq Resources (ARQ-V) is now manoeuvring to add more ground to its already impressive property holdings on the northern limb.

“We have captured a commanding land position on what is the world’s single most focused area for open-pittable PGM deposits,” says Robert Dickinson, co-chair of the Hunter-Dickinson group of companies.

Over the past three years, Anooraq has assembled three land packages covering some 45 km of the platinum-palladium-bearing Platreef horizon. Although the Platreef appears to correlate structurally with the productive Merensky reef, on the eastern and western limbs of the complex, it is a wider zone (about 50 metres at its widest). It can therefore be mined by large-scale open-pit methods.

Anooraq originally got involved in the Bushveld in late 1998 by inking a deal to earn a 70% stake in the Platreef PGM project, 275 km north of Johannesburg. Today, the company’s properties occupy a 14.6-km stretch of the favourable Platreef horizon. The former owner of Platreef drilled eight holes into the property and intersected up to 2.94 grams combined platinum-palladium-rhodium-gold per tonne over 20.9 metres.

The southern part of the property is adjacent to Anglo American Platinum‘s (AAPTY-O) property. The company, knows as Amplats, has eight deposits (totalling 350 million tonnes at an average grade of 4.36 grams combined platinum-palladium-rhodium-gold), including the Sandsloot open-pit mine and the large Overysel deposit.

“Sandsloot is probably an anomaly in the whole district because everything else is a blind deposit discovered by grid drilling,” Anooraq President Ronald Thiessen tells The Northern Miner, “and with the southern boundary of our property less then a kilometre from Overysel, we expect more deposits to be found to the north.”

In 2000, Anooraq punched 35 diamond drill holes over a 4.5-km strike length on the southern portion of the property. Particularly encouraging to the company is a 1.6-km strike length section that shows good mineral continuity with potential for outlining a higher-grade portion. Using a combined platinum-palladium-gold cutoff grade of 1 gram per tonne, the weighted average intercepts from the drilling are 0.86 gram platinum, 1.05 grams palladium, 0.04 gram rhodium and 0.14 gram gold per tonne, plus 0.1% copper and 0.15% nickel, over 13.1 metres. Individual drill intercepts ran as high as 4.61 grams combined platinum-palladium-rhodium-gold over 6 metres.

The company’s main target lies in the upper 50 metres of the favourable Platreef horizon, which dips 40 to the west. Most of the mineralization is hosted in a coarse-grained pyroxenite and consists of two zones, dubbed A and B. Separated by a few metres of low-grade material, zone B tends to occur at the hangingwall contact of a norite unit and is generally 11-14 metres thick, whereas zone A is typically 6 metres thick.

Spurred on by the initial drill results, Anooraq decided to acquire a 100% interest in the project from Denver-based Pinnacle Resources (PNRR-O), which received a 30% equity interest in the junior.

Anglo Platinum deal

Recently, after 18 months of negotiations with Amplats, the Hunter-Dickinson-led company doubled the size of its property portfolio. Under the deal, Anooraq can earn a half-interest in 12 properties by spending $3.6 million over five years. The junior can then earn an additional 30% by bringing a property into production.

Most of the new holdings cover the northern extension of the Platreef horizon, adding another 20 km of prospective strike length to Anooraq’s total property package.

“Since this area was not on Amplats’ radar screen for the next five years, the government wanted them to give it up,” says Thiessen, “so this deal satisfies what the government is looking for, plus Anglo still has a hook in it with a 20% joint-venture interest and a concentrate purchasing agreement.”

Amplats is in the midst of building a PGM smelting and refining complex near Polokwane, formerly known as Pietersburg, which is only 20 km from Anooraq’s ground. Also, the company intends to bring other of its Platreef deposits on-stream as part of a plan to increase production to 3.5 million oz. by 2006.

“The goal now is to develop an exploration program and find more resources that can be developed by Anooraq or in collaboration with Anglo,” says Thiessen.

The third property deal inked by the junior involves privately owned African Minerals, an affiliate of Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Capital.

Included in Anooraq’s original land holdings was a 29-sq.-km piece of ground lying some 18 km south of the main target area. Known as Rietfontein, the property lies immediately east of African Minerals’ Turfspruit project, which has been the subject of intense exploration activity over the past year.

“They have a sizable operation with anywhere from six to eight drill rigs operating relatively continuously over the past 12-to-14-months,” says Thiessen.

With some of the holes drilled less than five metres from the Rietfontein boundary, African Minerals inked a deal with Anooraq last year to earn a half-interest in the property by spending $750,000 over two years and taking a $520,000 portion of a $3.2-million private placement completed by the junior.

Instead of drilling the obvious target near the border, African Minerals first elected to drill-test a 1.5-km-long platinum anomaly in the northern portion of the Rietfontein property. With results showing only anomalous PGMs, the drill rig is now expected to move down to the primary area of interest.

Tweetfontein Hill

Immediately north of Rietfontein is the Tweetfontein Hill deposit, where Amplats has outlined a 5-million-tonne resource grading 5 grams combined PGMs plus gold, as well as 0.54% copper and 0.65% nickel.

Moving farther south, Australian-listed Pan Palladium has launched a resource-drilling program over its Grass Valley PGM project. Situated 15 km south of Potgietersrus, the property hosts an inferred resource of 59.1 million tonnes grading 1.3 grams combined platinum-palladium-gold, plus 0.14% nickel and 0.04% copper. Mineralization occurs in the favourable Platreef horizon.

The 10,800-metre program includes 35 holes into the Northern deposit (24.2 million tonnes grading 1.5 grams combined platinum-palladium-gold, plus 0.15% nickel and 0.05% copper) and 19 holes slated for the Southern deposit (34.9 million tonnes grading 1.1 grams combined platinum-palladium-gold, plus 0.14% nickel and 0.03% copper).

Pan Palladium can earn a 75% interest in Grass Valley from Impala by completing a bankable feasibility study.

Photo by Richard Graham

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