Burundi.—When Argosy Minerals began exploring for lateritic...

Burundi.—When Argosy Minerals began exploring for
lateritic nickel in the Musongati area of the African country
of Burundi, it was seeking to increase its share of the global
nickel market. Instead, it found what the company’s manager
of corporate development described as Africa’s new platinum
province. Argosy began its African exploration in 1998.
However, the outbreak of intertribal hostilities in 2000 forced
Argosy to put its exploration plans on hold. By April 2002,
conditions had improved to the point that Argosy’s technical
personnel returned to Musongati and restarted work. Musongati
offered Argosy the location and geologic setting for what
could ultimately become a successful PGM project. The area
reportedly has two distinct types of deposits. One consists
of shallow continuous zones of PGM mineralization in an
overlaying laterite profile. The second consists of disseminated
sulfides hosting PGMs in underlaying complex continuous
zones to more than 400 meters (m) vertical depth. Another plus
for development of the project is the extensive and good-quality
geological data that had been collated by the Geological Survey
of Burundi along with a substantial core library. The Musongati
deposit is 26 km wide and 20 km long with the primary
mineralization of cobalt and nickel that also contains PGMs.
The target resource estimate of 20 Mt at 1.42 g/t palladium
and platinum equates to 28,400 kg of contained palladium and
platinum (Australian Platinum Conference, 2002b).