Zambia – Central Province Project

ETA’s first project commenced in Zambia in 2019 when we acquired unexplored Brownfield land in Central Province. We transformed the project by investing international and local expertise and millions of dollars into carefully targeted exploration, drilling and mining engineering programmes. Thereafter, during the COVID-19 pandemic, works were paused in 2020. In 2021, we applied for a new 10-year mining lease, which was successfully obtained in October 2021.

In 2021 and 2022, we carried out extensive geophysical surveys and resource evaluations over the property. During a 3-month period from March to May 2021, an extensive Dipole-Dipole and Induced Polarisation Survey was carried out across the property.

Between June and August 2021, a Physical Trenching Campaign was carried out to excavate and evaluate the promising results from the early geological surveys, including the IP results. This comprised 6 kilometres across 5 trenching lines at 2 to 5-metre depths. During the Trenching Campaign, multiple iron ore intersections were encountered.

From October 2021 to January 2022, a two-phased Diamond Drilling Campaign was carried out, comprising 40 holes at multiple angles and multiple depths, totalling 2,100 metres. During the Drilling Campaign, multiple intersections were encountered with manganese ore.

These geological evaluations confirmed the earlier expected results of multi-million-tonne manganese ore resources being in place.

Building on the investments in earlier mine engineering and planning works, production will commence in May 2022, with first year extraction expected to exceed 200,000 metric tonnes, rising annually from 2023 to over 250,000 metric tonnes per annum.

Advanced discussions are taking place with potential international off-take partners.

Given the promising manganese mineralisation in the wider area, we are presently acquiring nearby exploration and mining licences to increase the extraction footprint.

Estimated extractable reserves in our Central Province project support the presence of several million tonnes of manganese ore reserves in place.

Manganese deposits at our Central Province mine are easily accessible. The mine is well connected by established nearby major road and rail links, allowing our high-quality product to be rapidly and reliably shipped worldwide from ports in Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa.