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ReGIonAL RoUnDUp

Walkabout takes road less travelled

alkabout Resources Ltd is nearing stopped mining and left the zinc, mostly prove a distraction to Walkabout’s pro-
Wa maiden drilling programme on its at around 45m although a few shafts are gress on its flagship asset; the Lindi Jumbo
Scotland base metals project after finding at 150m. As soon as they ran into water graphite project in Tanzania.
high base metal values from a rock chip they stopped. We are targeting underneath The company is currently in direct ne-
campaign last month. those mines as well as the offshoots and gotiations with a group of African develop-
Walkabout has held farm-in rights over parallel systems.” ment banks to secure debt funding of up to
the three licences (covering 746sq km) in Cunningham said ground magnetics had $US30 million for Lindi Jumbo, which has a
south-west Scotland since 2018 but the re- been effective in identifying several north- price tag of $US27.8 million.
cent grassroots campaign comprising de- west-southeast features parallel to the min- “This will not prove a distraction for our
tailed mapping, sampling and ground geo- ing areas. team, which continues to work flat out on
physics was the most extensive undertaken “The magnetics was successful and as funding solutions for Lindi Jumbo,” Cun-
during that period. soon as we can get back on the ground ningham insisted.
The results included rock samples grad- we can ground-truth these targets and get Such is Walkabout’s commitment to Tan-
ing up to 30% zinc, 9.1% lead, 7.4% copper permits to start drilling in the near future,” zania, it has pegged a second project in the
and 36.1 g/t silver as well as confirmation he said. country, this time prospective for gold.
of multiple legacy mining operations dating Drilling permissions loom as a key risk. The Amani gold project is 50km from
back to the 18th century and Lake Malawi and was the
potential strike mineralisation site of a major alluvial gold
of more than 4.5km. Ground rush in the late-90s. Artisa-
geophysics also indicated the nal miners are still present
potential for multiple parallel but the goldfield remains
offset structures from the his- untouched by modern ex-
torical mining zones. ploration. Walkabout is the
Walkabout technical director first company to test the
Andrew Cunningham told Pay- district’s hard rock gold po-
dirt TV the results reinforced tential.
the company’s belief that these “It has escaped the at-
long-forgotten mines could tention of all the major
benefit from modern explora- exploration companies in
tion. Tanzania,” Cunningham
“This is an area one would explained. “We are not in-
think had been explored to terested in the alluvial gold;
death but in fact it’s the exact it is the source we are after.
opposite, very little exploration The area has been blocked
has been done in the past 150 out by the Government for
years,” Cunningham said. “The tenement applications, that
British Geological Survey did Andrew Cunningham has recently changed so
some work in the 70s but there we had the opportunity to
has been no activity since the peg a lot of ground.”
last of the operations stopped in 1917. So, The UK can be a difficult jurisdiction to gain Tanzania’s gold industry is largely cen-
for us it was a very exciting project we could exploration approvals – as Walkabout has tred around the Lake Victoria goldfield in
farm into.” found itself in Northern Ireland – but Cun- the country’s north but Walkabout believes
The company’s focus has been on the ningham is confident licences will be deliv- Amani is more analogous to the smaller
East and West Blackcraig mines which ered. Lupa goldfield in the west of the country
date back to Georgian times when miners “We’ve been working low key there get- where AIM-listed Shanta Gold Ltd has two
worked the ground by hand down to around ting all the permissions and buy-ins to the producing mines.
45m below surface, producing a reported project from community,” he said. “It is very “It’s not in the traditional mining areas
14,000t of lead ore and 1,200t of zinc ore different to what we are used to as there’s but is 300km south of the Lupa goldfields
with some minor copper returns. very little been done since they stopped op- where Shanta Gold has producing mines,”
Cunningham said the historical workings erating. But we’ve been very transparent in Cunningham said. “The geology and struc-
made an obvious target for early explora- our approach so they are quite supportive ture and similar; it is shear zone-hosted,
tion. of what we want to achieve there.” brittle, ductile systems.”
“In the historical reports there was up to He said the company had also received
70% lead. That is what excited us by this official support. – Dominic Piper
project; the high-grade numbers,” he said. “I’ve had meetings with the British Geo-
“We’ve done quite a bit of work to get to logical Survey and they’re very excited For more on the Amani gold project
that stage, mapping collated historical data, about what is happening on their doorstep acquisition see full interview
ground mags to identify drill targets pro- and, whenever we go to the UK, we get on Paydirt TV...
spective for lead, zinc, copper and silver. various investors showing a lot of interest.”
“It’s very high-grade vein style miner- The Blackcraig targets represent a new
alisation. As the lead petered out, they just early-stage opportunity but they will not

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