Orion Minerals’ high-grade copper strike at Flat Mine East heralds revival of Okiep region

Orion Minerals (ASX: ORN) has reported “spectacular” initial results from diamond drilling at the Flat Mine East prospect within its Okiep copper project in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.

Drilling has so far returned a best result of 49 metres at 4.89% copper from 231m down-hole, including 10.23m at 12.47%.

It is believed to be the highest-grade intercept ever reported at Flat Mines and confirms results from drilling completed in 1995 by the previous owner Goldfields of South Africa, which returned 59.1m at 3.55% copper including 10.12m at 9.83%.

The Okiep ground holding of 641 square kilometres covers the majority of the region where a total of 105 million tonnes is reported to have been mined over the past 100 years.

The virgin Flat Mine area and Orion’s current drilling program fall entirely within Orion’s executed mining right.

Major revitalisation

Orion managing director Errol Smart said the Flat Mine East results underscore the “huge potential” of the company’s landholding.

“Okiep contains literally hundreds of mapped, outcropping mineralised bodies where previous owners used scout drilling to intersect strong copper mineralisation in dozens of bodies but never completed drilling out these discoveries due to low copper prices,” he said.

“This has created a huge opportunity for us in a district which produced over 2Mt of contained copper metal historically.”

He said the Okiep region had been dormant for decades and was now experiencing a “major revitalisation” with the application of modern exploration and mining technologies.

Flat Mine campaign

The Flat Mine drilling campaign commenced in February with plans for 11 diamond core holes at the Flat Mines South, North and East targets for a total 5,800m.

The work aims to confirm historical results, generate new geotechnical information and provide additional material for confirmatory metallurgical test work including comminution, flotation optimisation, locked cycle tests, tailings characterisation and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) sorting.

Orion said the holes had been designed to best cover the areas that will contribute most significantly to the overall estimated indicated mineral resource at Okiep.

Production strategy

The blind-to-surface Flat Mine East discovery will form a key part of Orion’s early production plans for the Okiep project.

The prospect’s wide and high-grade massive sulphide zone is believed to sit within a larger intrusive body that hosts lower-grade disseminated or blebby sulphide mineralisation.

Best results to date have been 25.22m at 0.97% copper from 260m, including 10.22m at 1.35% from 275m within a broad elevated copper zone of 40.22m at 0.80% from 245m and 49m at 4.89% copper from 231m to 280m, including 10.23m at 12.47%.

Significant widths of waste granitic material are believed to be included within the 49m intersection, providing opportunities for upgrading the material through modern XRF ore sorting techniques to reject internal waste before milling.