Modern Mining July 2019

COUNTRY FOCUS: BOTSWANA

First natural flake graphite discovery in Botswana One of the most interesting presentations at the recent Botswana Resource Sector Conference (BRSC) in Gaborone was by Nico Scholtz, ExplorationManager for Tonota Resources, who outlined the work being carried out by the company on Botswana’s first natural flake graphite discovery. The project already has a JORC-compliant inferred resource in place and Tonota believes that there is considerable scope for this to be expanded, given that the present resource is based on only 10 kmout of 100 kmof identified graphitic anomalies.

T he discovery was originally made in 2014 by Tonota, a private Aus- tralian company, which has an 80 % interest in three prospecting licences owned by Botswana com- pany Q-Pene (Pty) Ltd. The licences, covering a total area of 2 096,7 km 2 , are located approxi- mately 30 km south of Francistown on either side of the A1 national highway in an area well served by infrastructure of all types. Tonota was founded and is managed as

Chairman by Patrick Volpe, who has had a long involvement in Botswana’s resource sector through companies such as A-Cap Resources, which he founded and

which was responsible for the Letlhakane ura- nium discovery, said to be one of the world’s largest undeveloped uranium deposits. Explaining the work programmes conducted thus far on the licences, Scholtz – who spoke to Modern Mining after the BRSC – said that

A Tonota crew weighing and splitting drill samples.

34  MODERN MINING  July 2019