Oliver Kazunga
Senior Business Reporter
CALEDONIA Mining Corporation says it has received encouraging results from exploration at its Motapa Gold Project in Bubi, Matabeleland North Province.
Apart from the Motapa project, the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange-listed mining group, which is seeking a multi-asset gold producer status in Zimbabwe, also owns the Bilboes project in Bubi, Blanket Mine in Gwanda as well as the Maligreen Goldfields and Glen Hulme projects in the Midlands Province.
“Caledonia is pleased to announce the first results from its recent exploration programme at Motapa, an exploration project acquired in November 2022, located directly adjacent to the company’s Bilboes Gold Project in southern Zimbabwe.
“At Motapa, the combination of diamond drilling (DD) and reverse circulation (RC), designed to test the continuation of sulphide zones of mineralisation below the historic oxide open pits, have returned highly encouraging results.
“In addition, shallower drilling in new target areas has returned encouraging results both in shallower oxide, and deeper sulphide zones,” said the group in an update.
Prior to Caledonia’s acquisition, the Motapa claims were previously held by the Bulawayo Mining Company, a privately owned United Kingdom firm.
The project was formerly owned and explored by Anglo-American Zimbabwe prior to its exit from the country in the late 1990s.
The Motapa asset, which is estimated at 75 kilometres north of Bulawayo with a mining lease covering about 2 200 hectares, had been mined throughout most of the second half of the 20th century.
“The programme to date has achieved the initial objectives and included 12 724 metres of trenching — 4 143m of DD and 5 433m of RC.
“The drill programme featured generally wide-spaced holes at several prospects on the Motapa lease area and highlighted the presence of widespread gold mineralisation over a combined strike length of more than 9 kilometres.
“Results included significant high grade gold mineralisation in numerous areas (for example in particular the Jupiter, Pluvious and Mpudzi areas) which will now be the focus for follow up drilling with a view to defining an open pit mineral resource,” said Caledonia.
