LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Botswana-focussed exploration company Kavango Resources reported the publication of a new independent technical review on the exploration potential of its Kalahari Suture Zone (KSZ) project on Wednesday.
The London-listed firm said the review was completed by Dr David Holwell of D&D Geoconsultants, using a mineral systems approach (MSA), which it claimed was a more predictive method for finding large scale ore deposits.

It said the review confirmed its assessment of the KSZ project's "significant" economic potential, adding that follow-up testwork would be completed once travel restrictions are lifted.

The company said the review confirmed the presence of 10 key geological features present in world-class magmatic sulphide copper-nickel-platinum group metals (PGM) deposits at Norilsk in Siberia, Voisey's Bay, Raglan and the Thomson Nickel Belt in Canada, and Jinchuan in China, as well as other similar magmatic sulphide deposits worldwide.

The review recommended a number of exploration steps for the company to take in establishing whether additional geological features are present in the KSZ, which are typically found in world-class copper-nickel-PGM deposits.

Exploration of the KSZ would include a combination of desktop and drill core analysis, and field exploration.

The review reportedly concluded that the KSZ "is a prime setting for a magmatic Nickel-Copper-PGM deposit."

It announced a proposed collaboration with the University of Leicester to examine the economic potential of the KSZ, which would be an applied research project under Dr Holwell's supervision.

The research work would include petrology, mineralogy, electron microprobe work, whole rock geochemistry and thin section work on exploration data gathered by Kavango.

Kavango said it would release its KSZ work programme plan in the coming weeks.

"The review of the Kalahari Suture Zone Project by Dr Holwell and the work carried out to date by the company represents confirmation that Kavango is 'on track' to make a mineral discovery in the near future," said chief executive officer Michael Foster.

"The huge value of deposits such as the copper-nickel-PGM rich ores in the Norilsk-Talnakh camp - of the order of hundreds of billions of dollars within a single ore shoot - provides a powerful incentive to develop an understanding of the geology of the KSZ and identify effective detection techniques."

At 1209 BST, shares in Kavango Resources were up 16.47% at 0.99p.

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