Twin Hills in Namibia is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week

Twin Hills in Namibia is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week

Osino Resources’ CEO Heye Daun expects construction at the company’s Twin Hills gold project, close to the town of Karibib in Namibia, to commence next year. Twin Hills is WhyAfrica’s Pick Of The Week.

By Leon Louw

Daun spoke at last week’s well attended Junior Indaba held in Johannesburg, South Africa. After his presentation Daun said that Namibia’s increasing number of new gold discoveries are well set to grow even though they are still reasonably prospective at this stage.

He said that the existing gold mines in Namibia like B2Gold’s Otjikoto mine and the much older Navachab gold mine, also close to Karabib and partly owned by QKR and state-owned Epangelo Mining, followed a similar growth trajectory.

Daun is the co-founder of the former Auryx Gold, which initially advanced the Otjikoto project until selling it to TSX listed B2Gold for USD160-million in 2011.

According to Peter Major, an analyst at Mergence Corporate Solutions, there is no doubt that Twin Hills is a growth story, and that the project ticks all the boxes. “The company has great leadership and fantastic geologists. The project is situated in a country that is politically stable and there is regulatory certainty. In addition, Namibia has great infrastructure which makes Twin Hills an exciting new prospect,” says Major.

Daun said that Namibia is an increasingly attractive mining destination. “There is a lot of smoke in Namibia, we’ve just got to find the fire,” said Daun.

Fast tracking through development              

Twin Hills is an orogenic-style, sedimentary-hosted gold project contemplated as an open pit, which Osino is fast-tracking through development.

The company recently published an updated resource estimate which included 2.1Moz in the Indicated category and 0.62Moz in the Inferred category.

The resource is contained in three distinct deposits over a strike length of 6km.

According to Dave Underwood, Osino’s VP Exploration the current resource conversion drill program has produced additional exciting surprises at Twin Hills and Clouds deposits with the discovery of high-grade feeder zones at both.

“The existence of feeder zones has been postulated since the early days of discovery at Twin Hills, but the recent discovery of these two high-grade zones goes a long way to confirming the model.

“These zones indicate the underground potential for narrow high-grade zones at a later stage of the mine plan and further drilling has been planned to chase the feeders along strike and down plunge. We have also just completed an early and proactive grade control orientation drill program, based on the proposed starter pit at Twin Hills,” says Underwood.

“The assay – 2 – results from this program will be used to determine fine scale variability and test various estimation techniques for selective mining.”

Since the cut-off date for drill assays used in the updated mineral resource estimate, a total of 9,887m (6,945m Diamond Drilling and 2,942m Reverse Circulation Drilling) has been carried out at Twin Hills, Clouds and Bulge.

This infill drill program is being carried out on a staggered 50m x 50m pattern resulting in an effective maximum drill spacing of approximately 32m to 35m.

“The current round of infill drilling is being undertaken with a view to converting a significant portion of the Inferred resource to the Indicated category, says Underwood.

The Twin Hills Discovery lies within the Kuiseb Formation, a sequence of turbiditic marine sediments several kilometres thick, which was folded during the neo-Proterozoic Damaran orogen between 520 and 500 Ma. The gold mineralisation is hosted within a meta-greywacke unit, which has been tightly folded into an overturned syncline, underlain by biotite schist and cordierite schist.

The discovery and growth of Osino’s flagship Twin Hills gold deposit in 2019 is a telling story of hard work, perseverance and not following accepted dogmas regarding prescriptive geological models. It demonstrates the use of innovative sampling techniques to enhance the identification of targets for follow-up drilling.

Leon Louw is the founder and editor of WhyAfrica. He specialises in natural resources and African affairs.        

WhyAfrica will visit both the Twin Hills and Otjikoto gold projects as part of its Southern Africa Overland Road Trip that starts on 20 June 2022.

WhyAfrica provides you with business intelligence that matters. WhyAfrica specialises in African affairs and natural resources. Africa is our business, and we want it to be yours too. To subscribe to WhyAfrica’s free newsletter or digital magazine, and for more news on Africa, visit the website at www.whyafrica.co.za or send a direct message. WhyAfrica launched its first ever digital magazine in November 2021. The company will undertake a road trip through South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana in June and July 2022. If you are interested in sponsorship or advertising opportunities, please contact me at leon@whyafrica.co.za. We have a wide range of different packages and combo deals to give your company the greatest exposure to a rapidly growing, African readership.  

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