My original thinking with buying Nzuri was exposure to extreme exploration upside with very little downside due to backing of high grade development ready Kalongwe asset, which thankfully due to the movement in copper and cobalt price is driving the fundamentals here on its own.
First the big picture of the district we Nzuri are exploring in, pay close attention to the size and grade of deposits along structures running through our concessions:
One thing that you can observe is that heading south east the density of discoveries is lower and this is only because the copper belt is still very under explored and they haven't moved out that far to date. To illustrate the point - Kamoa was discovered in 2010 and Kakula I believe in 2015.
Now not many people would know this, but since the Kakula discovery almost the entire area our tenements are on is a fully restricted zone. No one else is allowed to apply or get access.
The DRC government has tasked the World Bank with conducting a systematic survey and early stage prospect generation followed up by a full blown auction sometime in 2018 / 2019. I'm sure we will see BHP and other western exploration companies showing up to bid and returning to copper exploration in the DRC. It will not be cheap to bid for the ground around us, it will cost millions and millions of dollars and it will not be the domain of juniors.
That means the only listed exposure to this new district, an area that has recently produced the most exciting copper discovery of the century (IMO), the only way in for next 1-2 years (west katanga) is through Nzuri ($80m) or Ivanhoe ($4b).
Zoom in a bit and look at the prospects we know about and note the map scale:
Now the idea here is very simple we have two types of exploration happening - moonshots like Kasangasi and simple drill out tasks like Kambudji / Monwezi cluster. I think we are very likely to find more sources of copper cobalt ore to extend our life of mine, and if we find another Kakula that's a nice bonus.
Velow is my tracker for each prospect we have and expectation for next steps, I will update periodically:
What I would ideally like by end of this year's exploration program is:
1 - Drill enough to be able to put an estimated exploration target for grade and tonnage on Monwezi 2/7 and Kambudji, so we can price in some LOM extension. (All are copper/cobalt oxide mineralisation and near mine)
2 - Drill deeper at Kasangasi with a bit more commitment/balls, go big and make it real or eliminate it. Take a more detailed look at surface geology at Matunga.
3 - Take a look at Mukansa and Mamba areas which are both very smoky for high grade cobalt (some recent artisanal activity near Mamba), with surface geology mapping and trenching / pitting.
4 - Prioritise identifying new cobalt prospects for our new shareholders to salivate over.
NZC Price at posting:
36.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
