Australian exploration firm Midas Minerals is scaling up operations at its wholly owned Otavi Copper Project in Namibia following a string of high-grade copper and silver drilling results at its flagship T-13 deposit.
In its latest market update, the company said infill drilling within the Main Zone of the T-13 deposit has successfully defined and refined a high-grade zone extending over a 1.4-kilometre strike length.
The latest assay results were highlighted by diamond drill hole T13DD015, which intersected 51.4 metres grading 2.18% copper equivalent from a depth of 269 metres, including a higher-grade interval of five metres at 5.11% copper equivalent. A second hole, T13DD019, returned 61 metres at 1.95% copper equivalent from 282 metres downhole.
Midas Minerals Managing Director Mark Calderwood said the results build on a series of strong intercepts reported earlier this year.
The infill drilling programme is aimed at providing tighter geological and structural definition ahead of an updated Mineral Resource Estimate for T-13, which is expected later this year. The deposit currently hosts an inferred resource of 10.5 million tonnes grading 1.6% copper and 21 grams per tonne silver, based on historical pre-acquisition data.
“Infill drilling of the high-grade Main Zone at T-13 continues to return additional strong copper and silver grades, delivering 100-plus x metre CuEq intervals. These results follow other significant copper-silver intercepts reported on 4 May and 25 May this year,” Calderwood said.
He said the end of the wet season has allowed the company to accelerate exploration across the broader Otavi project area.
Midas currently has six drilling rigs operating across the project. Two diamond rigs remain focused on defining high-grade mineralisation at T-13, while resource definition drilling has commenced at the nearby Deblin copper-gold-silver deposit using three rigs.
A reverse-circulation rig is currently drilling the Spaatz target, while a seventh rig is expected to arrive before the end of June to begin testing additional regional prospects.
“Now that the wet season is behind us, we are preparing to test a number of other regional prospects with RC drilling as the potential of the Otavi Project continues to grow,” Calderwood said.
The exploration programme keeps Midas on track for a busy second half of the year. Following the anticipated T-13 resource upgrade later in 2026, the company expects to deliver an initial Mineral Resource Estimate for the Deblin deposit during the first quarter of 2027.
“As we progress drilling at T-13 to update its initial Mineral Resource Estimate for release later this year, we have commenced resource drilling at the Deblin Copper-Gold-Silver Deposit and are continuing exploration at Spaatz, with multiple rigs currently operating across the project area,” Calderwood said.
