VFEX- and UK-listed mineral exploration and development company Kavango Resources Plc sees potential for multiple gold deposits exceeding one million ounces in Zimbabwe, betting that decades of limited modern exploration have left significant discoveries buried across the country’s prospective ground, Mining Zimbabwe can report.
By Ryan Chigoche
The London-listed explorer believes Zimbabwe’s gold endowment is already proven, but that much of the remaining potential can only be unlocked through modern, district-scale exploration rather than continued focus on individual known deposits.
Alex Gorman, Kavango’s chief operating officer for Zimbabwe, said the company’s assessment is based on the country’s established gold mineralisation and the relatively limited application of modern exploration techniques across much of the country.
While Zimbabwe has produced gold for centuries, Gorman said the growth in production over recent decades had not been matched by the development of a new generation of large-scale mines or the level of systematic exploration seen in more mature gold jurisdictions.
Against that backdrop, she said the distribution of gold mineralisation suggested Zimbabwe could host multiple deposits exceeding one million ounces, with the possibility of a world-class discovery.
“The opportunity is not about whether Zimbabwe has the geology. The geology is already proven, we know there’s gold,” Gorman said.
“The opportunity is applying modern exploration science at scale to unlock what remains undiscovered.”
Her assessment comes as the government seeks to address the same exploration gap, with Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambamura saying Zimbabwe remains under-explored by modern international standards. Government is preparing a high-resolution national airborne geophysical survey to update geological information and identify areas of mineral potential.
Kambamura has said the country needs to understand what lies beneath its surface before it can make informed decisions about how its mineral resources should be developed, pointing to outdated geological maps and changes in exploration technology. ([Herald Online][2])
The government’s push provides a backdrop to Kavango’s thesis: Zimbabwe’s failure to produce more large discoveries may reflect an exploration deficit rather than a shortage of prospective geology.
Zimbabwe’s exploration gap
Gorman compared Zimbabwe’s geology with Western Australia’s Yilgarn Craton, an ancient granite-greenstone geological province that hosts some of Australia’s largest and most prolific gold districts, including the Eastern Goldfields around Kalgoorlie.
Zimbabwe and the Yilgarn share similarities in their granite-greenstone geology, tectonic histories and lithostratigraphic characteristics, Gorman said.
The key difference is exploration maturity.
The Yilgarn has benefited from decades of intensive exploration using increasingly sophisticated geological and geophysical techniques, while Zimbabwe has not received the same level of sustained investment or application of advanced mineral-systems approaches over roughly the past 25 years.
That leaves Zimbabwe with an established gold-producing history but significant areas where modern exploration has yet to fully test the geological systems beneath the surface.
Government estimates that about six million hectares of prospective ground remain largely unexplored, while the planned airborne survey is intended to provide better geological information for identifying new deposits and reducing exploration risk. ([The Financial Gazette][1])
From deposits to mineral systems
Kavango’s strategy is to move beyond exploration focused on individual known deposits and investigate entire mineral systems.
That means integrating geological mapping, geophysics, geochemistry and structural analysis across wider belts or districts to establish the controls on mineralisation and generate multiple drill-ready targets.
“If you want to go big, to find these world-class deposits, you need to identify as many targets as possible across a wide area,” Gorman said.
The approach is designed to improve the chances of finding concealed deposits and entirely new gold camps rather than simply extending known mineralisation.
For Kavango, Hillside provides a practical starting point.
The company is developing its Hillside gold project in an area with a long history of mining, while seeking to use modern geological models to understand the wider mineral system.
Gorman said Kavango had also established an on-site laboratory to generate real-time data from its operations.
The immediate objective is to develop Hillside towards free cash flow, she said, while the operational and geological information generated at the site can contribute to Kavango’s longer-term exploration strategy.
Technology and capital
The exploration opportunity comes with a familiar constraint: money.
Gorman said there was intense global competition for exploration capital, with a shrinking pool of funds available to companies searching for new deposits.
That makes Zimbabwe’s ability to attract international risk capital increasingly important.
Investors want stable and predictable mining policies, secure mineral tenure, efficient permitting, competitive fiscal terms, reliable infrastructure and quality geological information, Gorman said.
Mining companies also need to demonstrate technical capability, disciplined capital allocation, systematic exploration and responsible project development.
Those requirements broadly align with the government’s current attempt to modernise exploration.
At the Mine Entra Exploration Forum in July, Kambamura said Zimbabwe needed exploration finance to turn its geological endowment into discoveries, while promoting the use of drones, artificial intelligence and advanced geoscience tools to make exploration faster and more efficient.
The government is also rebuilding the Geological Survey’s database through data recovery, digitisation, core libraries and databases, seeking to improve the information available to explorers.
For Kavango, that combination of better public geological information and private-sector exploration expertise could help close the gap between Zimbabwe’s known gold endowment and the deposits that remain undiscovered.
Kavango’s immediate focus remains developing Hillside towards free cash flow, but Gorman’s broader argument is about what could come after the current generation of mines.
Zimbabwe’s gold production has grown significantly since 2009, with artisanal and small-scale mining accounting for much of the expansion rather than a comparable wave of new large-scale mines.
Kavango believes modern exploration can help change that equation by identifying larger deposits capable of supporting long-life, industrial-scale operations.
The company is also pursuing collaboration with universities, government institutions and other exploration partners to strengthen geological research and technical capacity.
For Zimbabwe, the potential prize is not simply replacing existing ounces as mines mature.
If Kavango’s assessment proves correct, systematic exploration could uncover multiple million-ounce gold deposits and potentially a world-class discovery in a country where large parts of the geological system remain insufficiently tested.
The challenge is converting that geological possibility into drill targets, discoveries and ultimately mines — a process that will require both the modern exploration techniques Gorman advocates and the patient capital that she says is increasingly difficult to secure.
