Celsius Resources extends known cobalt mineralisation at Opuwo

Celsius Resources (ASX: CLA) has extended the known mineralisation within the West Zone of its 95%-owned Opuwo cobalt-copper-zinc project in Namibia.

The latest round of resource expansion drilling at the zone unearthed multiple mineralised intersections including 13m at 0.14% cobalt, 0.67% copper and 0.75% zinc, which comprised a higher grade 2m interval containing 0.29% cobalt, 1.36% copper and 1.26% zinc.

Other notable results were 14m at 0.11% cobalt, 0.73% copper and 0.68% zinc, including 2m at 0.25% cobalt, 1.70% copper and 1.26% zinc; and 7m at 0.18% cobalt, 0.56% copper and 0.86% zinc, including 3m at 0.28% cobalt, 0.56% copper and 1.23% zinc.

“Results from the West Zone at Opuwo highlight the continued discovery of significant additional mineralisation outside the large existing mineral resource,” Celsius managing director Brendan Borg said.

“Our consultants are awaiting the final data to allow updating of the resource model, with the release of an updated mineral resource scheduled for later in the fourth quarter 2018, which will support future studies at Opuwo,” he added.

Opuwo cobalt-copper-zinc project

Celsius’ Opuwo tenements encompass 1,470 square kilometres, with the existing resource zone covering 10km of strike.

The current resource comprises 112.4 million tonnes at 0.11% cobalt, 0.41% copper and 0.43% zinc for 126,100t of contained cobalt.

According to Celsius, the mineralised zones remain open in all directions. Additionally, more than 95% of the mineral resource is fresh sulphide ore, which is generally more cost efficient to process than laterite ore bodies.

Previous flotation testing recovered up to 88% of the cobalt into a sulphide concentrate.

The company is working on optimising the recoveries and grades to feed its planned integrated downstream processing facilities.

Cobalt market

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has forecast that consumption of cobalt in lithium batteries will more than triple between 2017 and 2026.

This prediction takes into account the shift to reduce cobalt in batteries due to its skyrocketing price and human rights concerns that cloud 60% of the world’s supply that arises out the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A scoping study is due to be released before the end of the month.

In late afternoon trade, Celsius’ share price was up 4.17% to $0.125.