Orsa expands in Yunnan province

In China’s Yunnan province, Orsa Ventures (ORN-V) has secured the rights to acquire a project prospective for copper-nickel mineralization and platinum group elements (PGEs).

The agreement, signed with Yunnan Geology and Mineral Resources, also allows Orsa to form a foreign-owned enterprise that can conduct business nationwide in the exploration and mining sectors. The enterprise will be based in Yunnan. As a result, Orsa will not be required to structure a Chinese joint-venture company for each new project it acquires.

Yunnan province borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and came to prominence after Southwestern Resources (SWG-T) reported encouraging sampling and drilling results from the Boka gold project. Drilling at Boka is currently attempting to delineate resources.

Orsa’s Yuan Ma project is 150 km northwest of the capital city of Kunming and accessible by paved road and rail. It lies along the southern extension of the north-south-trending Panxi Rift, a major regional structure developed during the late Paleozoic period and accompanied by the massive eruption of the Emeishan flood basalts that covered most of the region.

Proterozoic metasediments in the region host numerous mafic-ultramafic intrusions where widespread copper-nickel-PGE mineralization is found, including several deposits north of Yuan Mu. Orsa says the region has “marked similarities” to Russia’s Noril’sk district.

Ongoing soil geochemical mapping will continue throughout the year. The program is being managed by Yunnan Geology & Mineral Resources, which has identified numerous copper-nickel-PGE intrusives in the district, as well as mineral occurrences.

Orsa also has the right to acquire three blocks comprising the Boka/ Dongchuan gold project, which adjoins Southwestern’s Boka gold discovery.