Platinum Group Metals and JOGMEC have expanded the drilling program on their Waterberg joint venture project on South Africa’s Bushveld Complex to 12 drill rigs. The expanded program is scheduled for completion by March 31 and will be followed by an updated resource calculation that will be incorporated into an ongoing pre-feasibility study.
The Waterberg project exploration budget for the annual period to March 31 now totals $8.5 million and is fully funded by JOGMEC. Platinum Group Metals holds a direct and indirect 58.62% interest in the project and is the operator.
Current drilling is to targeting the best grade thicknesses in the project’s shallowest locations. The deposit has shallow regions where grid areas measuring 250 m by 250 m are estimated to host more than 500,000 3E resource ounces (platinum, palladium, and gold) each. Targeting the best areas of shallow mineralization within these regions along the 13-km open strike length of the project is key to optimizing the prefeasibility design.
Additional resources above 200 m in depth may play an important role in the initial years of the ramp-up profile of the pre-feasibility mine design.
Additional drilling is also being focused on expanding on an intercept grading 5.84 g/mt 3E over 15 m true width at a depth of more than 800 m.