Oscillate’s Dalsu copper in Botswana is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week

Oscillate’s Dalsu copper in Botswana is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week

Oscillate has acquired prospecting licenses in the KCB.

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

The early-stage exploration space in the Kalahari Copper Belt (KCB) of Botswana is becoming really interesting. WhyAfrica visited the KCB in 2021 during the inaugural WhyAfrica Road Trip to look at several projects in the KCB. Since then, more drill rigs have been deployed at a range of new project sites across the KCB.

The latest acquisition the has piqued my interest is Oscillate’s acquisition of Kalahari Copper’s prospecting licences over the Dalsu prospects.

According to Oscillate CEO Robin Birchall, recent exploration work carried out by Kalahari Copper indicate elevated copper and silver mineralisation.

“We believe the project is highly prospective. The licenses are along strike from significant producing copper mines in a first-rate mining jurisdiction,” says Birchall.

The licenses are in close proximity to Sandfire’s Motheo copper mine, MMG’s Khoemacau and a number of other prominent exploration projects.

KCB a huge attraction              

“The KCB is about 1000km long and about 250 km wide. The belt contains copper-silver mineralisation, which is generally strata bound and hosted in metasedimentary rocks that have been folded, faulted and metamorphosed to greenschist facies.” (source: Oscillate)

The KCB has been investigated in detail by several companies over the last 20 years or so.

In 2023, the KCB became a copper producing district of significance when Khoemacau Copper Mine and exploration assets sold for USD1.9-billion to Chinese owned MMG. Close to Khoemacau Sandfire’s Motheo Production hub started production in record time.

WhyAfrica visited the Khoemacau copper project as part of that road trip in 2021 before heading into remote Botswana to visit several greenfields exploration project in the KCB.

The KCB remains underexplored and is regarded as one of the world’s most prospective areas for yet-to-be-discovered sediment-hosted copper deposits by the US Geological Survey.

Botswana a top 10 mining jurisdiction  

Moreover, Botswana ranks in the top 10 countries globally for mining investment attractiveness by Fraser Institute 2023. The region has excellent infrastructure, well-developed road networks and ongoing multi-million-dollar projects, including the North-west Transmission Grid Connection (NWTGC) aimed at providing power supply to new KCB mines.

In picture is a new access road in a remote region of Botswana that we visited during the 2021 WhyAfrica Road Trip. Image credit: Leon Louw for WhyAfrica.

Remember that WhyAfrica tracks early exploration and development projects in remote parts of Africa. During our WhyAfrica Road Trips we visit many of these projects.

Our next WhyAfrica Road Trip depart in August this year and WhyAfrica members will be able to follow the road trip and get daily updates on the WhyAfrica WhatsApp channel.

To become a WhyAfrica member, visit the WhyAfrica website.