Tanzania
Songea Nickel Project
The Songea Project is located in southwest Tanzania and forms part of the Albidon-BHP Billiton Exploration Cooperation Agreement. BHP Billiton has nominated fi ve Prospecting Licences, covering 838 sq km, as a Target under the terms of the Exploration Cooperation Agreement, and can proceed to earn a 30% interest in the project by completing expenditure of at least US$5 million.
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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.
Luwumbu Platinum-Nickel Project
The Luwumbu Project is situated in the Livingstone Mountains of southwest Tanzania and is owned 90% by IMX Resources (formerly Goldstream Mining NL) and 10% by Albidon. In June 2003 an agreement was signed whereby Lonmin plc had the right to earn a 70% interest in the project by sole funding a Feasibility Study on an Indicated Mineral Resource.
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On February 15, 2008 Lonmin announced their withdrawal from the Luwumbu Farm-in Agreement effective 31 March 2008. Lonmin had until 31 March 2009 to complete an indicated resource to earn a 51% interest in the Luwumbu tenements. Lonmin’s withdrawal at this stage means it has not earned an interest and the rights to the Luwumbu tenements remain with IMX Resources (ASX:IXR) 90% and Albidon Limited 10%
Exploration for Platinum Group Metals (“PGM”) has been carried out by Lonmin at Luwumbu since 2003. It is believed that the Luwumbu tenements have potential for other metals including nickel, but with the Lonmin-funded exploration being essentially PGM focussed, little targeting of other metals has occurred. The planned programme for 2008, subject to approval by the IMX Resources-Albidon joint venture company, Tausi Mining Pty Ltd, will be to:
- Evaluate in more detail the enormous volume of data generated from the diamond drilling and auger sampling gathered over the past fi ve years in the Nkenja area in the northern part of the project;
- Review the potential of the northern, central and southern portions of the tenement area for metals other than PGM; and
- Depending on the results of the initial review, further geological fi eldwork, sampling and airborne geophysics may be contemplated.
The work undertaken by Lonmin during the period it was funding the project focused almost entirely on PGM’s in the Nkenja area, which comprises a relatively small portion of the tenements. Despite the outstanding intersection from the 2005 drill hole NDH014 of 16.14m @ 5.36g/t 2PGM+Au (Pt+Pd+Au) including 1.67m @ 26.82g/t 2PGM+Au, the substantial drilling program at Nkenja in the last two fi eld seasons has failed to locate further economic mineralisation.
The Luwumbu area contains a number of mafi c and ultramafi c intrusions, potential host rocks for nickel and platinum deposits, in a zone that is at least 160km in length. This area of southwest Tanzania has the most extensive outcrop of rocks interpreted to form part of the same geological province as the host rocks to the large Kabanga nickel deposit in the northwest of the country.