“This is a very important milestone for the New Okiep Mining Project,” Boksburg-born Orion CEO Errol Smart commented in a release to Mining Weekly. Overall, Orion is targeting substantial diversified base metal production through the development of the Okiep Copper Project and the Prieska Copper-Zinc Project, also in the Northern Cape. The latest surface right ownership also removes any conflict of interest in future surface use, allowing outstanding environmental authorisations and water-use licence and rezoning applications to proceed to completion. Orion has mobilised drill rigs to execute a 3 000 m twin hole drilling programme over the Flat Mines East and Flat Mines North deposits and conduct confirmatory geotechnical and metallurgical test work. The mining right and prospecting rights surrounding the granted mining right contain 18 known mineralised bodies that are mapped and drilled by Newmont and Gold Fields.
