Andrada commences exploration at Brandberg West
Andrada Mining Limited has announced the commencement of an initial exploration programme at their Brandberg West licence EPL5445, Namibia.
Located 110 km west of the company’s Uis Mine, the Brandberg West mine was owned and operated by Gold Fields until its closure in 1980, historically producing over 12,000 tonnes of tin and tungsten concentrate.
Anthony Viljoen, CEO of Andrada Mining, commented “The project provides an exciting opportunity for us to duplicate the development process we have successfully implemented at Uis, by taking it from an abandoned historical operation, into a fully-fledged mine”.
“The historical figures show that [Brandberg West] has the potential to double the current volume of tin concentrate produced at Uis”, Viljoen continued.
The Brandberg West licence has multiple documented occurrences indicating the presence of a large-scale tin-tungsten-copper system. The presence of copper will be investigated as a potential by-product. The area is dominated by a folded sequence of metasediments trending NNE-SSW, with multiple generations of quartz veins, some associated with hydrothermal tin, tungsten, and copper mineralization.
The exploration programme is divided into two phases. An initial phase will investigate the polymetallic mineralisation of the historical opencast operation through a detailed 3,000 m drilling campaign due to commence before the end of 2023. The second phase exploring the wider licence area will follow up on targets identified by historical and 2021 exploration programmes.
The commencement of an exploration programme targeting tin-tungsten-copper mineralisation aligns with Andrada Mining’s diversification aims. The potential production of tungsten, and copper as a by-product, will expand the number of technology metals within the company’s portfolio.
