Copper 360 CEO Jan Nelson interviewed by Mining Weekly’s Martin Creamer. Video: Darlene Creamer.
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Okiep Copper Company, which mining company Newmont established in 1937, is today one of the 100%-owned subsidiaries of South Africa’s Copper 360, the only pure copper play listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Under Newmont, the Okiep Copper Company paid out about R30-million in dividends every year during the 25 years that it operated in the Northern Cape.
“That’s certainly where we’re going with what we are doing now,” said Copper 360 CEO Jan Nelson in a Zoom interview with Mining Weekly to mark Copper 360’s latest stunning copper discovery in what is proving to be a highly prospective part of South Africa.
“We’re looking to create immense wealth for South Africa, for our shareholders and the communities around us, by becoming one of the prominent copper players in South Africa.
“We’re here to create a bright South Africa, create wealth and show that building a world-class company is possible in South Africa and that we can compete with anybody anywhere in the world,” said Nelson. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)
South Africa should always have been excited about the assets Copper 360, which listed in April last year, has in this area. After all, Rietberg, the first of its dozen resources, turned out to be 220% greater than historic data indicated.
But this new huge discovery simply lifts the company’s copper potential to yet another far-reaching level.
The discovery has been made alongside the historic Okiep-linked Tweefontein mine. This mine produced 138 683 t of rock at a recovered grade of, wait for it, 25.4% between 1937 and 1950, the highest grade ever mined in the region.
“There is close to 35 m of 4.5% copper on surface, which is massive, and our geophysics show that we’ve got multiple zones. The significance now is that this shows for the first time that we can have copper deposits in the Northern Cape the size of which you see in Chile, those big openpit mines, but a difference being where Chile’s mines are running at a copper grade of about 0.25%, our surface deposits, which are looking to be similar in size, are running at between 2.5% and 4.5%,” Nelson enthused.
The ongoing drilling under way is being assisted by the orebody being easily accessible.
“In the next six months, we’ll drill this extensively and then from there, we’ll get the mining engineers in on it and hopefully we can plan a significantly huge openpit the size of what you see in Chile and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Nelson outlined.
