Kalahari Copper Belt Project
Botswana
The Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana is an emerging region drawing much attention and investment from global mining companies, including ASX listed Sandfire Resources (‘Sandfire’) and global giant BHP. Several large-scale sediment-hosted copper-silver discoveries have been made in recent years, including the Khoemacau underground mine now operated by Chinese-owned MMG Limited through a recent US$1.9 bln deal, and the Motheo open pit mine being rapidly developed by Sandfire, with several further discoveries recently announced by ASX-listed Cobre Limited (‘Cobre’). Galileo’s holdings are both proximal to some of these discoveries and in other areas are believed to include similar prospective stratigraphic and structural settings.
Galileo’s Kalahari Copper Belt project encompasses a total of 19 exploration licences, 8 of which were included in a final sale agreement completed with Sandfire Resources in September 2021. As part of the agreement, Sandfire was required to spend US$4 million on the licences in the first two years of the agreement. The remaining KCB licences were retained 100% by Galileo.
Sandfire is one of the dominant explorers in the Kalahari Copper Belt and has possession of a large ground holding surrounding their Motheo copper mine. It is hoped that the new relationship is mutually beneficial for both parties, allowing Sandfire to expand on their Motheo development, whilst allowing Galileo to benefit from their wealth of expertise in the region.
Three of Galileo’s retained licences have been prioritised for follow-up work, selected due to their underlying geology and their potential to host sediment hosted copper mineralisation associated with the prospective D’Kar/Ngwako Pan lithological contact horizon, which is associated with many of the new copper discoveries in the region.
PL253/2018 is located in the under-explored north-western portion of the Kalahari Copper Belt, sandwiched between two of Cobre’s exploration licences, where recent copper discoveries have been made. In this area the prospective D’Kar/Ngwako Pan contact horizon is interpreted to be tightly folded and thrust repeated.
PL039/2018 is dominated by the presence a prominent NNW-SSE trending conductor in the north-eastern section of the licence, which has potential to represent the southwest extension of a conductive dome. The setting of a conductive dome with major faulting offers potential for a Motheo style A4/T3 dome style drill target where mineralisation at the stratigraphic boundary between the Ngwako Pan/ D’Kar potentially remobilized upwards via low-angle thrusts and was concentrated in a trap site. This potential is reinforced by the discovery of soil geochemical anomalies as part of a more regional Galileo sampling programme.
Recent drilling by Arc Minerals and Khoemacau on the adjacent Mowana fold structure have both intersected potentially significant mineralisation.
PL040/2018 extends over 30km of the interpreted strike length of the prospective D’Kar formation contact, its presence confirmed by wide-spaced historic drilling, which reportedly intersected D’Kar/ Ngwako Pan contact, but did not intercept mineralisation. Historic soil sampling identified the D’Kar Formation/ Ngwako Pan Formation contact further to the southwest of the licence, and the company selected priority zones for soil sampling along the interpreted 30km strike of the contact with a view to identifying potential higher-grade zones along strike of and in between the current widely spaced drill holes.
In 2021 a collaborative drilling programme with Sandfire was completed on the full KCB licence area, a total of over 5,000m of mixed core and reverse circulation drilling was completed. Drillholes were targeted based on interpretation of an airborne EM survey carried out by the Company, and designed to test the D’kar Formation/ Ngwako Pan Formation contact.
Visible copper mineralisation was intersected at 242.7m in drillhole BDDD004 on Sandfire’s licence PL366/2018 in the form of vein-hosted chalcopyrite, and the target D’kar/Ngwako Pan Fm formation contact with included associations of disseminated pyrite was intersected in the majority of holes drilled on the licences.
A 2024 Airborne Gravity Gradient (AGG) survey jointly commissioned by Cobre and Sandfire included part of Galileo’s licence PL253/2018. The results of the survey are expected to provide valuable information on basin architecture and identify the potential location of copper-silver bearing trap-sites analogous to Sandfire’s neighbouring T3 and A4 deposits.
Continued exploration by Galileo during 2024 included the collection of 3,373 low detection mobile metal-ion (TerraleachTM) soil samples on licences PLs 253, 039 and 040 over critical contact zones. Sampling included ground adjacent to the licence hosting Cobre’s recent drill discoveries at Ngami and Kitlanya, where similar soil programmes led to drill target identification. The results of the survey have been encouraging, with several high-priority targets identified.
- PL253/2018: Identification of three strong copper targets located along structures proven to host copper mineralisation on neighbouring Cobre licences, with a combined strike length of more than 6km. Galileo’s soil results were combined with Cobre’s for illustration purposes, which highlighted that targets appear contiguous and associated with the same geological and structural features, and based on the close correlation, a fourth possible target area has been identified along strike from Cobre’s Tlou target.
- PL039/2018: Two new targets have been identified located towards the south-eastern basin margin of the Kalahari Copper Belt. The newly identified targets on PL039 boast many similar characteristics to the Mowana Fold, where Khoemacau recently reported drill intercepts of 4.3m @ 1.65% Cu and 6.1m @ 2.56% Cu.
- PL040/2018: Three geochemical targets have been identified, with the southernmost target extending over 2.8km.
Considerable work has been completed by Sandfire in the region within the period to date, a summary of which includes:
- PL250/2020 – Covered by the regional airborne gravity survey (AGG), with approximately 7.24km of prospective Lower D’Kar contact identified, warranting a Terraleach soil geochemical survey
- PL367/2018 – Four multi-element soil anomalies have been identified as priority targets with infill Terraleach soil surveys planned
- PL251/2020 – Host to T3/A4-type targets and covered by AGG survey, with Terraleach follow-up scheduled
- PL366/2018 – A soil anomaly was identified warranting additional soil geochemistry in conjunction with Sandfire’s announced AGG regional survey
- PL044/2018 & PL045/2018 – Airborne magnetic and radiometric geophysics and follow up drilling confirmed the presence of magnetite and disseminated copper-zinc mineralisation in intermediate to acid volcanic rocks – follow up under review
