On the 2 nd February 2017, AVZ Minerals Ltd. formed a joint-venture (JV) with La Congolaise d’Exploitation Miniere SA (Cominiere) and Dathomir Mining Resources SARL (Dathomir) to become the majority partner in a JV aiming to explore and develop the pegmatites contained within PR13359. With the purchase of Dathomir’s 15% shareholding in 2021, current ownership of the Manono Lithium Project is AVZ 75% and Cominiere 25%.
As of March 31, 2024, AVZ continued to affirm its legal rights to a 75% interest in Dathcom Mining SA (Dathcom), the entity holding legal rights to PR13359 comprising the Manono Project and its continuing pre-emptive rights over 15% of the 25% interest held by La Congolaise d’Exploitation Minière (Cominière).
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Summary:
The Manono Lithium and Tin Project lies within the mid-Proterozoic Kibaran Belt, an intracratonic domain stretching for over 1,000 km from just north of Kolwezi north into southwest Uganda. The belt strikes predominantly southwest to northeast and is truncated by the northsouth to north-northwest-south-southeast trending Western Rift system.
Historically the Manono Lithium and Tin Project has been referred to as the Manono-Kitotolo Deposit, comprising the north-eastern Manono Sector and the south-western Kitotolo Sector separated by 2 km by Lake Lukushi.
The area is covered by a variably lateritised eluvial cover up to 8 m thick and consists of orange brown sandy or clayey-sandy, loose laterites, crumbly laterites and hardpan laterites. Sandy alluvial material cover occurs along the Lukushi River and its tributaries. The alluvial and eluvial (including the lateritised material) cover contains significant cassiterite and minor columbite- tantalite mineralization and was mined prior to the discovery of the pegmatitehosted mineralization and is still mined by artisanal miners today.
Within the Manono-Kitotolo sectors there are currently 7 large discrete pegmatite intrusions recognized, namely Roche Dure, Kyoni, M’Pete, Tempete, Carriere de L’Este, Malata and Kahungwe, along with several smaller unnamed pegmatites.
The host rocks to the pegmatites comprise mica schists and mafic schists/amphibolites, the latter being more prevalent in the hanging wall to the Carriere de L’Este and Kahungwe pegmatites of the Manono Sector. The rocks are derived from sedimentary, probably argillic with subordinate arkosic compositions, and mafic volcanic protoliths (Spitalny, 2018; Dewaele et al., 2015) of the Kibara Supergroup.
The mica schists contain lenses of amphibolite and have a well-developed schistosity and compositional banding, with variations in the quartz and mica contents, parallel to the schistosity. In places the mica schists contain numerous staurolite porphyroblasts (>5mm) and may also contain tourmaline and rarely contain garnet porphyroblasts (Bassot and Morio,1989 and Spitalny, 2018). These rocks dip at ~70° to the northwest and vary locally from moderate to steep dips (50°-85°) with minor intra-folial folding.
The pegmatites have a surface exposure of approximately 12 km along a northeast-southwest strike with an average exposed width of approximately 400 m, but this varies from 50 m to 800 m wide (Kokonyangi et al, 2006; Dewaele, 2015), and true thicknesses of up to 250 m (for the Roche Dure pegmatite) to 3,000 m, are lens-shaped, thickest in the centre and thinning along strike, and often have thin offshoots parallel to the main pegmatite body.
The Roche Dure Pegmatite is the largest of the four pegmatites in the southern Kitotolo Sector. It is at least 2,800 m long, based upon exposed pegmatite in pit-walls and natural outcrops and with intersections achieved from the recent drilling. The pegmatite has a strike of about 055° and dips at about 40° to the southeast.
The pegmatite has a broadly lenticular shape and drilling completed by AVZ has confirmed that at its thickest point the Roche Dure pegmatite has a true thickness exceeding 250 m and thins along strike in both directions. The pegmatite is hosted by mica and biotite schists. The only distinct recognisable zone within the Roche Dure Pegmatite is a narrow wall zone of contact metamorphosed tin rich greisens (typically about 0.5 m-1.0 m but can be up to a few tens of metres thick); the remainder of the pegmatite is essentially homogenous with regards to the distribution of spodumene, when the entire volume of the pegmatite is considered.
The greisen’s are a minor component and were developed along the contacts with the host rock. They may also be randomly distributed within the pegmatites and discontinuous. Small lenses and larger partings of the host schists and amphibolites are common within the pegmatites and of variable continuity. The larger more continuous partings are more common towards the footwall of the pegmatite and to northeast, where the Roche Dure pegmatite thins.
Drilling by AVZ at Roche Dure has shown the depth of weathering to be more variable from 0 m to 100 m with an average depth of 43 m. A transitional zone is also recognised from the drill core where the spodumene appears fresh and unaltered, but the feldspars are weathered, and the core is partially oxidised and broken.