Rich ore discovered in drilling at Selebi copper-nickel mine in Botswana

According to a report from Mining.com, NexMetals Mining announced on Monday that it had encountered rich ore during drilling at the Selebi North deposit in eastern Botswana. The project is located 410 kilometers north of the capital, Gaborone.

The SNUG-25-184 hole, deployed in the southern limb of the orebody, encountered 13.5 meters of ore at a depth of 772.6 meters, with a copper grade of 1.13% and a nickel grade of 1.25%. This includes a 4.95-meter-thick mineralization with a copper grade of 1.76% and a nickel grade of 1.85%.

The SNUG-25-185 hole, deployed in the N2 limb, encountered 5.95 meters of ore with a copper grade of 2.87% and a nickel grade of 0.62%.

The SNUG-25-184 and SNUG-25-185 holes are the first two holes planned for drilling in this project.

"The drilling results from holes 184 and 185 continue to indicate highly successful step-out drilling, significantly extending beyond the current resource boundary," said Morgan Lekstrom, CEO of NexMetals Mining. "The drilling has further extended the orebody down-dip by 315 meters, completely exceeding the modeled boundary."

Just a month ago, the company changed its name from Premium Resources to its current name, with the aim of focusing on critical minerals at the old Selebi mine. In February, the company raised CAD 36 million from mining magnate Frank Giustra and his Fiore Group. Cymbria, a subsidiary of wealth management firm EdgePoint Investment Group, also agreed to clear Premium's CAD 20.8 million term loan.

Prospective ore limbs

The SNUG-25-184 hole also penetrated the N2 ore limb, encountering 6.25 meters of ore at a depth of 882.75 meters, with a copper grade of 0.62% and a nickel grade of 0.75%.

This deposit was previously mined and later named the N2, N3, and southern limbs to better distinguish their positions within this folded ore layer.

The ongoing drilling aims to extend and verify the strike extension of the orebody.

Initial resource estimate

Nearly a year ago, NexMetals announced the initial resource estimate for Selebi: The main deposit has an inferred ore resource of 18.9 million mt, with a nickel grade of 0.88% and a copper grade of 1.69%, translating to a nickel metal content of 165,000 mt and a copper metal content of 319,000 mt.

The northern deposit, approximately 6 kilometers from the main deposit, has an indicated ore resource of 3 million mt, with a nickel grade of 0.98% and a copper grade of 0.9%, translating to a nickel metal content of 29,500 mt and a copper metal content of 27,100 mt. It also has an inferred ore resource of 5.8 million mt, with a nickel grade of 1.07% and a copper grade of 0.9%, translating to a nickel metal content of 62,400 mt and a copper metal content of 52,500 mt.

From 1990 to 2016, the Selebi North underground mine extracted 13.9 million mt of ore, with a nickel grade of 0.74% and a copper grade of 0.66%.

The main ore deposit was mined from 1980 to 2016, but production was forced to be suspended due to failures in the processing facilities.