Armada Metals logs new targets for drilling at its Nyanga nickel-copper play in Gabon

Armada Metals (ASX:AMM) shares have seen healthy gains in morning trade as the company unveils its discovery of new drill target at the company’s 100% held Nyanga nickel-copper project in Gabon. 

The Nyanga project is located in south Gabon, with a landholding of some 3000km². It is located in the Nyanga region of Gabon itself, lending the project its namesake. 

Within that landholding, as advertised on the company’s project webpage, is located 18 different mafic-ultramafic targets, a type of rock often host to base and precious metals deposits. 

Local geology overview

Exploration to date has focused on a 25km long geological trend called the Libonga-Matchiti trend. Back in March, the company executed a 3,000m drilling campaign at the target.

The Libonga-Matchiti trend comprises a marginal fringe of the Congo Craton, which also extends into Cameroon, Sudan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and, the Central African Republic (CAR). 

It is a precambrian formation, and one of the largest cratons in the African continent (including the Kaapvaal craton the Zimbabwe craton, the smaller Tanzania craton, and the West African craton.) 

Five of the company’s 18 targets described on the website are located over the trend. Key targets already logged include Libonga North, Libonga South and Matchiti Central. 

Additional targets of interest include Ngongo and Yoyo; all five targets were logged in airborne surveys. 

And what about the new targets? 

New reviews of magnetic survey campaigns on-site the project (using Natural Source Audio-Magnetoelluric tech, or ‘NSMAT’) have today awarded the company two new concealed targets, called Libonga Central and the Libonga Central Extension. 

Both are located between Libonga North and Libonga South, giving Armada a corridor of targets to progress a drill rig along; all targets will be subject to future drilling through 2023 and beyond. 

Data delivers confidence: Management 

“The current modelling and technical review represent another success in our exploration, with the NSMAT survey delivering better than expected results,” Armada Metals CEO Dr. Ross McGowan said. 

“These results will directly inform our next drill program…the latest data provides us with the ability to confidently define anomalies of potential exploration importance within the Nyanga Project Area.” 

“With the mobilisation of survey equipment in progress, we are excited at the prospect of defining additional exploration targets [ahead of 2023.]” 

What comes next? 

Underground magnetic responses are the key dataset underpinning confidence in the targets, with yet another airborne survey to be flown over Nyanga in the coming weeks and months. That survey will fly 1,500km line kilometres. 

Technology to be flown overhead is currently located in a major city in Gabon, shortly to be delivered to site, with commencement in the first half of December and wrapping up no later than mid-January (all things in order.) 

Data from that survey will then be processed, at which time, further magnetic imagery scans will also be amalgamated together to give the company the best possible information possible ahead of 2023 drilling. 

Gabon is subject to wet seasons and work can only operate once rains have finished; that wet season typically runs from October to December and into May. 

Armada Metal's three month charts. Relatively low liquidity and a lack of exciting recent newsflows may be depressing shareholder sentiment; as well as risk-off macro backdrops. However, shares are up 7.7% today.