KEFI Gold and Copper plc (LON: KEFI), the gold and copper exploration and development company focused on the Arabian-Nubian Shield, has announced that its Gold and Minerals SLA (GMCO) joint venture in Saudi Arabia has been awarded the Umm Hijlan Exploration Licence (EL), located directly south of the Hawiah EL. The licence was secured following a competitive bidding process that assessed the quality and merits of each tenderer’s proposed exploration programme.
GMCO has long identified this EL as a key target, given its proven extension of the southern strike continuation of the main Hawiah volcanic massive sulphide (VMS) system.
The Umm Hijlan EL consolidates a 210km2 strategic licence area for GMCO and offers the prospect of adding significant additional oxide and sulphide resources to the advanced Hawiah Copper-Gold-Zinc-Silver Project. The Hawiah and Al Godeyer VMS deposits already contain Mineral Resources totalling 30 million tonnes (“Mt”) at 2.5g/t gold-equivalent or c. 2.5 million gold-equivalent ounces. In copper equivalent terms, it represents approximately 30Mt at 1.7% copper-equivalent or 510Kt of copper (based on prices of US$9,500/t copper, US$2,600/t zinc, US$1,965/oz gold and US$24/oz silver).
