Chasing Title Of World’s Leading Tin Producer
Alphamin Resources Corp. (TSXV:AFM), producer of four percent of the world’s mined tin from its high-grade operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has recorded significant exploration success with its Mpama South drilling programme.
Highlights
- Main Zone mineralisation intercepted at Mpama South, based on a visual inspection and interpretation, is comparable to the mineralisation being mined at the high-grade Mpama North Mine;
- New parallel mineralisation zone discovered in the footwall of the Main Zone at Mpama South (Footwall Zone); and
- Additional drilling metres planned at Mpama South to increase size of the Main Zone and incorporate the Footwall Zone into a planned Maiden Mineral Resource estimate.
CEO, Maritz Smith, said Alphamin’s exploration initiative aims to extend the life-of-mine at its currently producing Mpama North operation, to declare a Maiden Mineral Resource for Mpama South (located 750m south of Mpama North) and to discover at least one additional orebody on the highly prospective Bisie Ridge (13km strike length).
In that regard, Alphamin plans to allocate significant drilling metres to each of these target areas during 2021 as follows:
- Mpama South – between 8,000m and 14,000mdrilling with the intention of being able to declare a Maiden Mineral Resource estimate towards the end of 2021 to be followed by a conceptual mining study, infill drilling and further step-out drilling to determine the extent of mineralisation;
- Mpama North – an initial 7,500m drilling campaign is planned to test the strike and dip extension of the current producing orebody, below 400m in depth from the mine portal. Drilling should commence in August 2021 on the establishment of an underground drill drive on Level 6;
- Two drill targets 6-8km south of Mpama North have been identified along the Bisie Ridge. A high-density geochemical soil sampling programme is underway and more accurate drilling targets will be identified by the outcomes of this program in Q3 2021.
Mpama South is located 750m south of Alphamin’s operating mine. A drilling programme completed in 2016 recorded notable cassiterite intercepts in similar alteration styles and of similar high grades to Mpama North, including apparent widths of:
- BGH011: 32.8 metres @ 2.46% Sn (incl. 18.75 metres @ 3.91% Sn),
- BGH003: 2.50 metres @ 5.76% Sn.
Alphamin commenced its Mpama South exploration program with a 5,800 metre (25 drillholes) drilling campaign in December 2020. To date, 5,056m and 23 holes have been completed. All holes completed have shown visual mineralisation, suggesting continuity of the Main Zone system, while several exceptional intercepts visually comparable to the thick veins and brecciated zones of cassiterite existing at Mpama North were also observed, In addition, a new zone of mineralisation was discovered in the footwall which appears continuous and highly mineralised (Footwall Zone).
The first seven drillholes from the current drilling campaign were sampled and assayed by the company’s on-site laboratory. Results confirmed the visual interpretation of high-grade tin intercepts over wide zones.
“These drill intercepts are very encouraging for the Mpama South Prospect. Mineralisation within the Main and Footwall Zones point to a possible Mpama North lookalike and we are encouraged by the resource expansion potential within the existing mining permit,” Smith said.
“Our view that the 13km long Bisie Ridge hosts multiple high-grade mineralised systems continues to be reinforced, which brings us closer to realising our vision of becoming one of the world’s largest long-life tin producers.”
