Matsitama
Copper Project

Matsitama has been the subject of significant historic exploration activity over the past 50 years, which has culminated in a well-documented understanding of its complex geology and mineralisation potential.

Between 1960 and 1976, BCL undertook two phases of work on the Matsitama Schist Belt. In 1963, the Matsitama copper prospects were discovered, and detailed prospecting work continued through to 1967. This prospecting work revealed an extensive basin of highly folded sedimentary rocks, comprising the “Matsitama Formation”.

Subsequently BCL undertook 23 diamond drillholes on Nakalakwana Hill, targeting a thick copper zone along 3.2 km of strike. The drilling returned narrow zones assaying between 1% and 1.5% copper over a thickness of up to 3.4 metres, with continuity over 1.6 km within a 60-metre-thick quartz-mica schist.

In 1987, Goldfields conducted a regional reconnaissance program, relogging and resampling several boreholes drilled by BCL to evaluate gold, copper, and silver intersections. Encouraged by the results, they expanded their efforts through further relogging and resampling of additional boreholes, with a particular focus on Nakalakwana Hill. Goldfields conducted extensive soil geochemistry, whole rock geochemistry, ground magnetics, and induced polarisation (IP) surveys around Nakalakwana Hill. Anomalous gold values were found in soils southeast of Nakalakwana Hill, with Goldfields concluding that the gold was most likely remobilised from another source.

Between 1999 and 2001, Ambase carried out mapping, geochemistry, geophysics, and drilling work, with 14 reverse circulation holes drilled across five grids. In 2006, Quantec Geoscience Africa initiated Titan ground surveys covering 46.3 km’s on its Nakalakwana Titan grid.

In 2007, African Copper undertook a drillhole twinning program, for the purpose of validating the BCL drilling undertaken on the Nakalakwana Hill grid area. Significant copper intersections were repeated, along with significant gold intersections. This work led to two distinct copper-gold zones being identified at Nakalakwana Hill, being the Western Schist Zone and the Eastern Ferruginous Zone.

The culmination of historical exploration has resulted in a data-rich project that contains over 50,000 metres of drilling, 115,000 multi-element soil geochemistry samples, and extensive airborne and ground geophysical surveys.

Through a compilation and interpretation of historical and current exploration activities, Eastport has identified over 10 copper exploration targets, with the immediate focus on the following three:

Nakalakwana

An advanced-stage target with a SAMREC-compliant indicated and inferred copper resource of 9.9 million tonnes at 0.464% (cut-off 0.3%).

The Nakalakwana orebody remains open along strike, down-dip, and down-plunge, presenting significant opportunities for resource conversion and expansion drilling. Eastport’s current priority is designing and executing the drilling programme.

Phudulooga

Located on strike (~20 km’s) to the operating Kopano copper mine, the copper zone at Phudulooga is known to be at least 1,600 metres long by ~30 metres wide. It is characterised by high-grade chalcopyrite veins up to 13% copper. The initial objective is to better define the copper orebody and identify high-grade mineralised zones.

Lepashe

The Lepashe area features widespread copper anomalies, with numerous bedrock samples returning up to 1-2% copper. Two models are proposed for the mineralisation: intrusion-related copper-silver mineralisation, ascribed to the IOCG model, and structurally-hosted massive copper vein sets located within the D4/D6 interference zones, or following the Kopano model. Both styles offer the opportunity for large copper deposits.