from smh***Botswana shares jump after copper find February 4,...

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Botswana shares jump after copper find February 4, 2010 - 12:09PM
AAP

Explorer Botswana Metals Ltd has announced high copper grades at its Airstrip project in Africa.

Shares in the Melbourne-based Botswana shot up in early trade, and at 1151 AEDT were trading up 6.7 cents, or 176.32 per cent, at 10.5 cents.

Company chairman Pat Volpe the latest results from their operation in the southern African nation of Botswana were great.

"It is quite exciting because it is just to the west of the nickel discovery that we had in the same area, and that is about 50 metres away from one of the world class nickel mines, and 100 metres from another nickel producer," Mr Volpe told AAP.

"It is just a matter of size now, how big it is, but the grades are fantastic," he said.

Mr Volpe said if the mine went ahead exporting the copper from landlocked Botswana would not cause problems, with ports available in nearby Namibia or South Africa.

He said the geology of Botswana was under-explored and similar to that of Western Australia.

"It is a great country it is unexplored and the geology mirrors Western Australia, where it was probably 30 years ago in terms of opportunity for exploration," Mr Volpe said.

He said the company had a lot of work before starting mining of the copper, with more exploration work needed.