Haib: Exploration doesn’t get any better than this

Haib: Exploration doesn’t get any better than this

WhyAfrica visited Koryx Copper’s Haib project during the 2025 WhyAfrica Road Trip.

By Leon Louw founder of WhyAfrica and editor of the WhyAfrica magazine.

It is not only the extra-ordinary landscape where Koryx Copper’s Haib exploration project is located that makes it such an intriguing copper play, drilling results are amazing too.

WhyAfrica has been writing a lot about Koryx Copper’s Haib Copper project in southern Namibia over the last two years or so.

Haib has changed hands between several mining companies in the past, but under Heye Daun, President and CEO, and the company’s formidable new management team, exploration drilling and development has taken a new turn.

WhyAfrica visited the Haib project, located about 40km from the small town of Noordoewer in southern Namibia, during the 2025 WhyAfrica Road Trip through southern Africa.

We were welcomed by Daun and his team in Noordoewer on the banks of the Orange River and given a tour of the entire exploration site located about 40 kilometres from the Namibia and South African border.

Haib ranks as one of southern Africa’s most exciting new exploration projects and with Daun steering the ship, drilling is in overdrive with six rigs on site when we were there.

On the snaking, steep descent to where the rigs were located, we passed four more machines on the way to the exploration site making it 10 in total.

Central figure in Namibia’s mining    

Daun is a central figure in Namibia’s modern mining story, leaving his mark through two of the country’s most significant gold projects. His first success came with Oryx Resources, where he played a key role in the discovery of the Otjikoto gold deposit in the late 1990s. The project later became a cornerstone asset for B2Gold and is today one of Namibia’s largest producing gold mines.

Daun then established Osino Resources, where the team discovered the Twin Hills gold project near Karibib. Subsequently, Twin Hills was advanced from grassroots exploration into a world-class gold deposit.

Daun’s new venture, Haib, is a large, advanced copper/molybdenum porphyry deposit.

More than 80,000m of drilling has been conducted at Haib since the 1970’s with significant exploration programs led by companies including Falconbridge (1964), Rio Tinto (1975) and Teck (2014). Extensive metallurgical testing and various technical studies have also been completed at Haib to date.

The ability to produce high grades

WhyAfrica’s visit to Haib coincided with Koryx’s geology team announcing a high-grade drill result from a section of the exploration site. Daun told WhyAfrica on site that this is a significant event as it proves the ability of Haib to produce high grades.

“It also demonstrates the continuity of these structures along strike and their much higher grade.  Given the support provided by some neighbouring high-grade holes (and still open at depth), this area is opening up as a compellingly prospective target with the potential for near surface, high grade and low-strip starter pit development along these east-west trending structures,” Daun told WhyAfrica.

Mineralisation at Haib is typical of a porphyry copper deposit and it is one of only a few examples of a Paleoproterozoic porphyry copper deposit in the world and one of only two in southern Africa (both in Namibia). Due to its age, the deposit has been subjected to multiple metamorphic and deformation events but still retains many of the classic mineralization and alteration features typical of these deposits. The mineralization is dominantly chalcopyrite with minor bornite and chalcocite present and only minor secondary copper minerals at surface due to the arid environment.

I like Haib because, as Heye Daun, CEO and Chairman of Koryx said in the interview, success in bringing exploration projects into fruition is all about leadership, jurisdiction, asset quality, growth and valuation.

Moreover, now that I’ve been to the Haib drilling site myself, seen the exploration program in full swing, met the whole team, had a look at the large amount of core samples and spent half a day on the ground with the exploration team, I have a better understanding of the deposit and a lot more context of where Haib is located and how it is being developed.

Aside from its great executive team, the Haib project boasts well-known names in its strong technical and exploration teams as well. These guys have done it all very successfully before, and they’re coming back for more.

Namibia is without a doubt still one of the top mining jurisdictions in Africa and it is a perfect place to develop such an outstanding copper asset with lots of upside and growth potential.

New holes yield positive results

Meanwhile in late October Koryx announced assay results from 17 drill holes (5,556m) received as part of the Phase 2 and 3 drill program for its 2025 exploration and project development strategy at Haib.

According to Daun, this batch of 17 assay results represents a good spread of locations across the entire mineralised system, and from each of the four defined target areas.

“Encouragingly, the holes continue to yield consistently positive results and support the mineral resource at Haib. The site geological team has made notable progress with building an updated geological model, having completed the relogging of all available drill core, updated the database, and under the guidance of our expert consultants, have reinterpreted the entire lithological and structural model for the deposit,” says Daun.

“We are now integrating all this information and with this updated geological model we now have a much better understanding of the controls and distribution of copper and molybdenum grade. The new model also allows the geologists to improve, and more accurately estimate, the overall mineral resource,” he adds.

Haib: Exploration doesn’t get any better than this