A local exploration company’s activities on the northern and
eastern limbs of the Bushveld Complex (BC) will continue to fuel
activity in South Africa’s booming platinum industry.
MSA Projects, a 20-year-old South African company, has introduced
Australian junior miner Pan Palladium to three sites that contain
resources that could prove highly profitable once mining activity
begins.
MSA Projects also introduced the Millenium platinum project to
Canadian mining company SouthernEra.
Situated 12 km south of Mokopane (formerly Potgietersrus), Limpopo,
is Grass Valley.
Grass Valley holds an estimated 59-million tons of inferred
resource containing platinum-group metals (PGMs) and gold grades in
the region used sand wash plant priceof 1,3 g/t.
This area of exploration falls on the same horizon as
platinum-mining major Anglo Platinum’s highly lucrative
Potgietersrust Platinum mine.
MSA senior geologist Keith Matier says the project is suited to an
openpit operation.
This would make the possibility of initiating a project in the area
appealing to Pan Palladium as the operating and capital costs of an
openpit mine are somewhat less than conventional undergrousmall chrome crushing plantnd
activity.
Financing production at the proposed operation would be
supplemented by the significant grades of copper and nickel
associated with the resource.
Confident that it could rely on drilling information gathered by
Rio Tinto and Gencor in the early 1990s, MSA Projects approached
Pan Palladium with the idea of funding the development of Grass
Valley and expand exploration in the region. “Since April
last year, at least 46 additional hoiron ore heavy duty equipments with photosles have been drilled at the
site,” Matier states. Without these additional holes, the
site’s net present value (NPV) stands at $170-million.
In light of the metallurgical test work that has been conducted
over an additional 11 km of diamond drilling, the possibility of
the NPV being higher than originally anticipated is highly
encouraging, Matier believes.
In the last two years, MSA Projects has also been conducting
exploration work for Pan Palladium at Aurora.
Two and a half years ago, the exploration company began
investigating the Aurora area, which Impala Platinum had begun
drilling previously.
On the northern limb of the BC, MSA Projects identified 22 km of
potential strike of the platreef at the Aurora project, and brought
the project to the attention of Pan Palladium.
Tests conducted in the area have revealed high copper and nickel
values which are indicative of higher PGM content in this
area.
“Soil samples of an area that straddles four kilometres
suggest that a potentially large body lies under it,” Matier
indicates.
To date, MSA Projects has conducted soil sampling of a 14 km strike
length of potential platreef on behalf of Pan Palladium.
Phosiri, another potentially mineable target, which Matier believes
may be equivalent in size to established mines on the western limb
of the BC, is another project to which MSA has led Pan
Palladium.
Situated between Southern Era’s Messina Platinum Mines and
Anglo Platinum’s Atok operation, Matier believes that Phosiri
has the potential to be as rich as the main mines on the BC’s
western limb. However, Matier states that the junior miner is
seeking a joint venture partner to develop this project.
In other developments, MSA Projects introduced Southern Era to the
Millennium project, near Groblersdal, which lies adjacent to Cluff
Mining’s Blue Ridge project.
Although Millennium is still in the initial explor-ation phase, an
inferred resource of about 10,3-million tons at grades of 4,46g/t
have been unearthed since exploration began in the middle of
2001.
To date, more than 14 diamond drill-holes have been drilled into
the UG2 resource, further expanding the 1,4-million ounces of
inferred PGMs already established from the previous phase.
The second phase of drilling at Millennium began in August last
year.
MSA Projects’ involvement with Southern Era extends to the
development of Messina platinum mines Voorspoed and Doornvlei
sections, which became operational in December.