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Our Copper Contract Operations

SHAMROCK MINE

Project Description

Shamrock has potential to be both an underground and an open cast operation. This project needs to start from confirmatory exploration moving into drilling, blasting and hauling of ore to the processing plant.

Project Operational Status

This is a non operational project that needs investment (both financial and technical) to move into production.

Locality

The property is around 100km north of Karoi in Hurungwe district of Mashonaland West province.

Physiography

Generally, the area receives high rainfall and is generally warm. Alaska can access water from the Angwa River. The Angwa and its west flowing tributaries, the Ridiwi. Mungamwa and Chimengsa all become a series of pools towards the end of the dry season.

Regional Geology

The copper-silver mines lie within northern extension of the Magondi Mobile Belt on the northwestern margin of the Zimbabwe Craton. The deposits are contained by predominantly meta-sedimentary deposits of the Magondi Supergroup of early Proterozoic age and dates back to 2.1 and 2.0 billion years. These are divided into Deweras, Lomagundi and Piriwiri Groups. Studies indicate that during the Magondi Orogeny, the Magondi Supergroup was deformed into a thin and thick skinned fold and thrust belt and has undergone green schist to granulie facies metamorphism. The strata have also been affected by the Irumide and Pan-African Zambezi orogenies. These tectonic events created an intermittent series of basin lows and highs. These are believed to reflect the nature of the underlying Archean Basement. The eastern part of the basin has been extensively deformed by early north trending folding, faulting and thrusting. The structures formed were later deformed and displaced by NNE trending faulting and folding. The eastern margin of the belt is marked by a ginger zone of tectonic weakness. This zone, which lies along the western edge of the Zimbabwe Craton, coincides with the known occurrence of mafic volcanics and intrusive in the Deweras Group.

ANGWA & CHIDZIKWE MINE

Project Description

Angwa Copper Mine and Chidziwa dump are wholly owned by Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC).

Angwa is still intact but will require steel casing and possibly deepening. The mine does not have an underground crusher and a crushing facility has to be placed underground to ensure that the operation is more efficient in hoisting ore to the ground. Dewatering will be done to ensure shaft is accessible.

Project Operational Status

Both mines ceased operations in 1997 and were placed on care maintenance due to funding challenges. ZMDC intent to reopen underground operations at Angwa and carry out dump re-treatment at Chidzikwe mine.

Location

Operations are located approximately 139km north west of Harare and 10km north west of Chinhoyi town. Both areas are served by road from Chinhoyi town. The properties lay in Makonde District, Mashonaland West Province, in central northern Zimbabwe

Physiography

Generally, the area receives high rainfall and is generally warm. The Hunyani River which runs across the southeastern part of the area is the only perennially flowing river.

The Angwa and its west flowing tributaries, the Ridiwi. Mungamwa and Chimengsa all become a series of pools towards the end of the dry season.

Regional Geology

Copper mineralization occurs in thick arkosic sediments which are overlain by calcareous sericitic chlorite schists. The whole unit has been folded into an anticlinorium that dips steeply to the west and plunges both north and south.

The upper part of the arkose is a mixture of feldspathic, sericitic arkose and quartzites with minor grits and conglomerates. The lower part are micaceous and chlorotic. The copper mineralization show preference of hard dense altered arkose but also appears as a structural control.

Mineralization favours anticline and syncline structures with great thickness decreases with depth and is found in thinner ore bodies in the limbs of the structure, eight limbs have been recorded.

Mineralization is generally very finely disseminated although it can be found as coarse aggregates and veinlets in sheared zones. Traces of silver averaging 18g/t with 1%Cu valves occur throughout the mine.

MHANGURA DUMPS TREATMENT

Project Description

Mhangura dumps are located at -16.8939 (latitude in decimal degrees), 30.1683 (longitude) in decimal degrees) at an elevation of 1182 meters at the mine office. The population of Mhangura is about 11 175 according to 1992 census, but it is anticipated to have dropped to 6 308 after mine closure in the late 1990s.

Location

Mhangura Copper Mine is accessible via a wide tarmac road which passes through Chinhoyi (120km from Harare), the nearest large town, and the location of the district and provincial headquarters. Lion’s Den is 25km from Chinhoyi along the highway and Mhangura is 45 km further north from Lion’s Den. Generally, Mhangura is 190km from Harare.

Physiography

Generally, the area receives high rainfall and is generally warm. The Hunyani River which runs across the southeastern part of the area is the only perennially flowing river. The Angwa and its west flowing tributaries, the Ridiwi. Mungamwa and Chimengsa all become a series of pools towards the end of the dry season.

Regional Geology

The Magondi metallogenic Province is sub-divided into several sub-provinces containing different types of mineral deposits:

• Syngeneic exhalations: iron and cherty manganiferous horizons

• Saline brines: strata-bound Cu and Ag (Au, Pt, Pd & U) mineralization in the Deweras Group and Cu-Ag in the Lomagundi Group

• Sedimentary exhalative: massive Zn, Pb, Cu, Fe & Ag sulphide deposits, formed diagenetically during basin evolution in the Piriwiri Group

• Volcanic: minor Cu and Au in the Piriwiri Group related to intermediate volcanics and pyroclastic rocks

• Metamophorgenic: vein and stratbound Cu and pegmatite deposits formed syntectonically during the Magondi, Irumide and Pan-African Zambezi Orogenies