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According to plan for Laconia

Companies such as Laconia Resourc- Drilling was under way at Kraaipan, southern Botswana, at the time of print
es Ltd are providing clear evidence
market conditions are ripe for juniors. ing in has about three or four smaller de- ager so he knows the gold greenstone
posits, but the main one is the KalGold rocks quite well. There is definitely gold
Laconia had only just started drilling mine, which has been in production since in the country and in the southern part
the Kraaipan gold-nickel-copper-PGM 1996,” he said. where we are there are similar green-
project, southern Botswana, when Pay- stones,” Hills said.
dirt last caught up Quinton Hills, howev- “Harmony is doing about 20,000m drill-
er, the chief executive was pleased to re- ing to extend KalGold so it is bound to be It is a good time for Laconia to be active
port interest in the company was sound. bigger than 4 moz. It is a proven terrain in in Botswana, with positive sentiment re-
terms of gold mineralisation, is there gold turning to the exploration sector and Mod
“The share price has definitely ap- in our tenement? The historic exploration Resources Ltd providing a beacon of light
preciated in the last couple of months; I suggests there is definitely gold there. Is for resources companies in country.
think it is mainly people trying to get set it an economic deposit? Hopefully, we
in the stock to be exposed to the drill pro- will find out.” “Mod has Botswana back on people’s
gramme,” Hills said. radar again,” Hills said. “It has been a suc-
Coal, copper and diamond projects re- cessful story and knowing that there are
“If we hit something we will see a steady ceive more air time than gold stories in other ASX-listed companies doing well in
rise in the share price, most of the inves- Botswana and despite the bulk of gold Botswana can only be good for Laconia.”
tors that invest in our end of the market activity occurring in the greenstones
are looking for that risk event where their near Zimbabwe, the gold endowment of – Mark Andrews
money could go up 3-4 times.” Botswana is unquestionable.

Laconia’s share price has doubled “Most of the gold exploration has been
since it raised $2.4 million at 2c/share up in the north in the greenstones near
in mid-2017, which is testament to Hills Zimbabwe. Our country manager was
delivering to plan in an encouraging envi- the Gallery Gold [which was bought by
ronment for explorers. IAMGold Corp in 2005] exploration man-

“I told everyone the plan and what I
was going to try and do with the soil geo-
chemistry and historical geophysics and
it has come together as well as I would
have expected with some really nice
compelling targets,” Hills said.

“Now we are drilling them, we are hit-
ting the right sorts of rocks. But, unless
you have visible gold it is hard to know if
there is gold in the rocks, so we have our
fingers crossed.

“The market is definitely more buoy-
ant and people are looking at exploration
again. Funds are still difficult to raise but
people always want to be exposed to a
good drill programme, especially if you
have got some good compelling targets
and a good chance of finding new min-
eralisation.”

In readiness for drilling, EM and mag-
netic modelling results provided further
confirmation of the strength of targets
KB01 and KB05; the highest priority
prospects.

Laconia hopes geochemical and geo-
physical techniques applied in Western
Australia’s Yilgarn will prove to be suc-
cessful in the Kraaipan terrane.

The techniques have not been used
extensively across Kraaipan and it is
hard to dismiss the theory considering
Laconia’s early showings.

With Kraaipan just 45km north of Har-
mony Gold Mining Co.’s 4 moz Kalgold
mine in South Africa, Hills is confident
Laconia is in the right geological setting.

“The terrain that we have been explor-

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