Eastern Desert of Egypt - Arabian Nubian Shield - Site visit notes

Given the number of conferences in March in Toronto, Exploration Insights had to defer the site visit note to the Arabian Nubian Shield (ANS) of the Eastern Desert of Egypt but better late than never.

The ANS is a patchwork of island arc terranes (island chains formed when two plates collide) that were sutured together 700 to 800 Ma ago and cover over 3 million sq km of territory from Ethiopia to Egypt in northeastern Africa (Nubian) forming a bridge to the Middle East (Arabian). It appears that the regional suture zones and the crosscutting subsidiary faults provided fluid pathways and structural traps for the various deposit styles.

Given its structural, lithologic, and chronological characteristics, the region is prospective for different types of deposits, including:

·??????orogenic gold (Sukari)

·??????volcanic-hosted gold-rich massive sulfide (Bisha)

·??????intrusive-related (Red Hill)

·??????porphyry copper-gold (Jebel Ohier)

At the Mining Indaba conference that I attended in February 2023, the Saudi Vice-Minister for Mining Affairs (Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources) took the opportunity to tout the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 — launched five years ago to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and develop public sectors, including mining, — asserting that the Arabian Shield contains ~US$1.3 trillion worth of potential mineral value.

On the Nubian side, Egypt auctioned off 320 blocks (170 sq km each per block in the Eastern Desert, between the Nile River to the west and the Red Sea to the east, to accelerate the exploration and development of its mineral endowment.?

Illegal artisanal miners in Egypt are a relatively recent phenomenon as they began operating only ten years ago, with a strong focus on gold. They differ from the subsistence miners I saw in Eritrea in that they are well-organized groups with access to heavy equipment that transports the run of mine ‘ore’ to a plant on the Nile River

Besides Elemental Altus Royalties , other major companies included in the auction process were Barrick , B2Gold Corp. , and Centamin PLC ., who operate the Sukari gold mine, which is associated with a granitic body that intrudes the northeast-trending splays off the regional northwest-trending Nugrus shear zone.

The Sukari gold mine produced 440,000 ounces of gold in 2022 from an open pit (11 Mt/y, 1.0 g/t Au) and underground (1 Mt/y, 4.7 g/t Au) operation. The production growth to 500,000 ounces per year is dependent on the expansion of the underground mine via the construction of a paste backfill plant to enable higher mining recoveries.

A high all-in-sustaining cost (AISC) of US$1,400 per ounce is due in part to the significant diesel exposure from the power plant (>70 MW) and diesel fleet, which must deal with a high strip ratio (8:1 to 11:1).

Cost mitigation plans include a connection to the national grid (24 km) to receive 50 megawatts from a mix of natural gas and renewable energy (hydro, solar, wind) and the construction of a solar power plant (36 MW) with battery storage (7.5 MW). On a positive note, the processing plant uses seawater from the Red Sea, so there are no water constraints.

The coarse-grained nature of the gold mineralization from the higher-grade underground resources has led the company to add a gravity circuit to the 12-million-tonne-per-year plant to raise the metallurgical recovery a couple of percentage points from the high 80% to the low 90%.

I also got a chance to see some grassroots exploration prospects operated by Elemental Altus that are prospective for both gold-rich VMS and intrusion-related gold systems, but it is less advanced and several hours by road from the company's Quseir headquarters.

The site visit to Wadi Jundi included a review of the Wadi Manih VMW target, which returned up to 4.3 grams per tonne of gold with 0.1% copper and 0.55% zinc from the NW Gossan and some nickel (1.13%) at the SE Gossan. The polymetallic and oxidized mineralization was localized along shear zones, which may provide future drill targets.

Another target was the Grey Granite intrusion-related gold system, exploited by illegal artisanal miners with an over 50-meter-strike open pit up to 30 meters deep focused on the quartz veins at the edges of the intrusion (3 km X 3 km). The veins run up to 7.9 to 12.7 grams per tonne of gold over short widths (0.4-0.6 m).?

My visit to Wadi Jundi indicates that neither target is very well developed as the focus has been more on Wadi Dubur, which has stand-up drill targets and is the closest to finding a partner. Unfortunately, I was unable to review Wadi Dubur during my site visit.

Summary:

·??????Explorers and miners understand that the ANS belt is prospective for gold and base metals in various deposit styles (orogenic gold, polymetallic VMS, porphyry copper, intrusive related gold systems, etc.).

·??????The size of the ANS allows companies to focus their efforts on favorable jurisdictions (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan)

·??????Saudi Arabia, via its Vision 2030 plan, has the capital and the prospective terrane to generate much interest from majors (Barrick, Ivanhoe Electric) and juniors (Royal Road).

·??????Egypt, on the other hand, requires more foreign direct investment and has only recently (2020) begun auctioning off exploration licenses for majors (Barrick, B2Gold) and juniors (Elemental Altus).

·??????Infrastructure (road access, grid power) still needs to be sorted out to lower the cost of working in Egypt’s Eastern Desert. However, access to water, including seawater from the Red Sea, seems like a viable alternative for processing.?