Nevsun Resources has entered into an agreement to acquire the Mogoraib exploration license near its 60%-owned Bisha mine in Eritrea. The license covers an area of 97.4 km2 and includes the Hambok copper-zinc deposit, located 16 km southwest of the Bisha mine and processing operations. Nevsun does not believe the deposit is economic on a stand-alone basis; however, with the Bisha plant a short distance away, it could provide additional plant feed. If additional exploration is successful and base metal reserves are identified, then Nevsun may consider increasing Bisha plant capacity when the plant transitions from processing copper ore to zinc ore in 2015 or 2016.
The Hambok deposit is a steeply-east-dipping, lenticular massive sulphide body consisting of a series of lenses that extend for more than 1,000 m along strike and approximately 350 m down dip and have a thickness of up to 75 m. The main sulphide minerals are pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite. There is also minor galena, tennantite, and digenite. The distribution of assayed base metal values within the sulphide body shows that the best grades occur at the top, bottom, and edges of the thickest accumulation of sulphides.
A historic data base for Hambok consists of 57 drill holes, 326 down-hole surveys, and assays for gold, silver, copper and zinc. A resource estimate based on these data was filed in 2009, but Nevsun is not treating this estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. (www.nevsun.com)
