Additional Prospecting Licences in Albidon’s Tanzania portfolio will be evaluated by the Company’s geologists in 2008.
A
systematic stream sediment geochemical survey undertaken by an
Albidon-BHP Billiton team led to the identifi cation of signifi cant
nickel and copper anomalies in three areas within the Songea Project
Area (Kitai South, Mabinga Prospect, Liparamba Prospect), with peak
values of up to 582 ppm Ni and up to 176 ppm Cu.
A VTEM airborne electromagnetic survey covering the Songea Project
in southwest Tanzania was completed by BHP Billiton in late 2007. The
survey totalled 3,016 line kilometres covering 414 sq km over several
prospective mafi c-ultramafi c intrusion complexes. The survey was
undertaken to follow up the signifi cant Ni and Cu anomalies identifi
ed in the previous stream sediment geochemical sampling.
The
VTEM survey has delineated a number of conductor anomalies at both the
Liparamba and Mbinga Prospect areas. Of these, the high priority
late-time EM conductor targets at the Liparamba and Mbinga Prospects
are located mostly within or near the contacts of the prospective
intrusion rocks covered by the EM survey.
Several of the EM conductors are coincident with nickel and copper
geochemical anomalies defi ned by soil and/or drainage geochemical
sampling.
At Liparamba one of the conductors is coincident with a geochemical
anomaly defi ned by assay values of up to 3,500ppm Ni (0.35% Ni) in
soil samples.
At Mbinga, one group of conductor targets is closely associated with
a Ni-Cu soil geochemical anomaly located within an embayment at the
eastern contact of the Mbinga Intrusion.
Several
of the Ni-Cu anomalies are accompanied by Co, Pt and Pd anomalies,
supporting the interpretation that the Ni-Cu anomalies refl ect nickel
sulphide mineralisation. The soil geochemical sampling areas, which
have been limited to date, will now be extended on the basis of the
latest results.
The geology of both the Liparamba and Mbinga prospect areas is
highly prospective. The Liparamba target is a noritic intrusion, with a
diameter of several kilometres. Mineralogical studies have confi rmed
the presence of the nickel sulphide mineral pentlandite within
gabbro-norite and olivine gabbro rocks close to the southwestern
contact of the intrusion.
The Mbinga prospect area is interpreted to represent a multi-chamber
norite-troctolite intrusion measuring 9km x 6km in size. Nickel
sulphide has also been confi rmed in outcrop samples near the eastern
embayment area at Mbinga.
The geology of the norite and troctolite rocks at Mbinga-Liparamba
is similar to that at Vale Inco’s large nickel sulphide orebody at
Voisey’s Bay in eastern Canada.
Detailed soil geochemical sampling will be undertaken over all the
priority EM conductor targets and to extend the small areas covered to
date. This work will be accompanied by detailed analysis and
interpretation of the EM data, and these two datasets will then be
combined with the aim of defi ning drill targets. It is anticipated
that drilling will commence in mid-2008.