ENRG shareholders poised to cash in on Botswana copper hunt

With copper prices recently reaching all-time highs, ENRG Elements shareholders are watching on closely as two Botswana copper projects the ASX-listed company is invested in start to take shape.

The company has skin in the game with both Arc Minerals and Kavango Resources and their respective copper exploration missions in Africa’s highly-prospective Kalahari Copper Belt – and both companies are poised to dive in with the drill bit.

London Stock Exchange-listed Arc confirmed overnight that a geophysical survey over its Virgo copper project, where ENRG has a 25 per cent share, has revealed targets that are begging to see the drill bit for the first time. The latter sold 75 per cent of the operation to Arc back in 2021 in exchange for a share package then worth about $2.2 million, which it on-sold soon after.

Kavango Resources, also London-listed, revealed a fortnight ago that it had placed a drill contract for the first phase of stratigraphic drilling at its Karakubis project where ENRG holds a 10 per cent slice. It sold 90 per cent of the operation to Kavango in November last year for a staged payment of $2.5 million.

The company’s ongoing copper investment comes at a time when the commodity is at the centre of a robust pricing period. The reddish metal was last week trading at an all-time high of about US$5.20 (AU$7.83) a pound, before receding to about US$4.66 (AU$6.93) today – a big move in a short time for a major trading commodity.

Arc is planning to kick off a new drilling program on June 17 to test two distinct shallow trends showing high prospectivity indicated by its recent induced-polarisation (IP) survey. A large, previously identified area of prospectivity with high chargeability and low resistivity was also identified by the survey at depth, leading Arc to modify its drilling plans to ensure it penetrated the target.

The campaign will now include diamond holes to test the deeper anomaly, in addition to shallower, cheaper reverse-circulation (RC) holes to ground-truth both sets of targets. The IP survey was comprised of 42.7 line kilometres designed to cover the extent of the D’Kar and Ngwako Pan contact across the Virgo licence and interpreted reduction-oxidation boundary – which may be a control on copper mineralisation in the area.

Arc says that in light of recent results, it plans to apply for renewals of the exploration licence at Virgo for a further two years, opening the door for future exploration drilling until late 2026.

Virgo has some big-hitting copper neighbours within close proximity – namely the Zone 5 and Banana Zone copper projects that lie 10km and 50km away, respectively, and are known as the two biggest copper projects on the Kalahari Copper Belt. The Banana Zone, owned by Khoemacau Copper Mining, has an inferred resource of 225.4 million tonnes grading 0.64 per cent copper with 8.4 grams per tonne silver to add some flavour.

Kavango recently contracted Mitchell Drilling Botswana to undertake the first phase of 5000m worth of diamond core drilling at Karakubis. The 10 to 15-hole program is slated to start this month to test stratigraphic position and structural features interpreted from a helicopter-borne electromagnetic (AEM) survey reported last month.

Mitchell is understood to have drilled more than 5 million metres in mineral exploration across the world and the work is expected to take about four months to complete.

ENRG appears to be well-engaged in the current commodity pricing frenzy with copper and uranium after yesterday revealing it is also soon expecting exploration permit renewals for its Agadez uranium project in Niger after receiving assurances of continued Government support for the mining industry during a recent visit to the country.

The price of the radioactive power source has been climbing steadily since the start of last year to peak at about US$100 (AU$150.70) per pound in January and February this year. ENRG’s Agadez project includes three exploration permits in the Tim Mersoï Basin – one of the world’s most prospective uranium-producing areas.

Since its acquisition of the ground, ENRG has undertaken 5500m of drilling and increased the previous estimated mineral resource to an inferred 31.2 million tonnes at a grade of 315 parts per million uranium oxide for 21.5 million pounds between the surface and a depth of just 37m.

But while all that is going on, it is likely the company’s shareholders are also doing the math on how big their slice of the African copper pie could become.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au