Empire Metals has a 50% interest in the Bolnisi Copper and Gold Project in Georgia, situated on the prolific Tethyan Belt, a well-known geological region and host to many high-grade copper-gold deposits and producing mines. The Bolnisi concession covers an area of over 860 sq km and has a 30-year mining licence with a variety of targets and projects ranging from greenfield exploration / target definition phase through intermediate target-testing phases to more advanced projects including Kvemo Bolnisi East which is due to advance to Feasibility Study.
The Company has tenure over two key deposits in the project licence area, namely Kvemo Bolnisi East and Dambludi, and is currently in discussions with the National Agency of Mines to seek to secure its rights to the remainder of the licence area, which includes three further deposits, Kvemo Bolnisi West, Tsitel Sopeli and Balichi.
Kvemo Bolnisi East
Location and Infrastructure
The Kvemo Bolnisi East Copper Gold Project sits less than 7km to the north-east of the producing Madneuli mine and processing plant operated by the Rich Metals Group, the production company operated by Empire Metals’ local partner. This mine has produced approximately 85Mt of copper and gold bearing ores, at a reported grade of 1.0g/t Au and 1.0% Cu, over a period of 30 years.
Empire Metals has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”) with RMG to reduce the capital investments required for production and offers the Company an alternative to a standalone operation. Furthermore, the MoU outlines mining and processing arrangements for the future production of precious and base metal ores mined from the KBE Project.
There is a good pool of local mining experience, including technical staff thanks to the Madneuli operating in the region for the past 30 years. Furthermore, regional infrastructure is in good order and services a network of population centres and villages, including the regional centre at Bolnisi. As a result, infrastructure requirements at the advanced KBE project are very straightforward, requiring only site access roads, a small number of dumps and stockpiles, some water management facilities, and a road to connect with the Madneuli operations.
Greater Kvemo Bolnisi
Gold Zone 3
Drilling at GZ3 may represent yet another epithermal centre in the KB camp with a discrete feeder breccia pipe at depth. The next phase of drilling will investigate the relationship between the GZ3 mineralisation and the established resources at the GZ2 system at KBE. The results at GZ3 that intersected high-grade polymetallic gold mineralisation including TGD093: 56.0m @ 1.03 g/t Au from 205m.
Kvemo Bolnisi West
KBW is located 600m west of GZ3 and represents a silver-rich epithermal system surrounding another separate breccia pipe, with a peak surface sampling assay of 888 g/t Ag. Historical drilling intersected polymetallic gold mineralisation at the same depths as GZ3 (Historic hole KBWDDH450: 30.9m @ 1.60 g/t Au & 10.78 g/t Ag from 193.0 m) but this is yet to be fully drill tested by GEO.