London-listed Galileo Resources has advised that the South African Competition Commission has granted approval for Galileo to sell all shares in its 36%-owned Glenover Phosphate subsidiary to diversified miner Afrimat for R300-million, or £13.3-million.

The remaining suspensive condition for the acquisition is approval from the South African Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, which Galileo expects will be finalised by July 31.

Afrimat in December 2021 announced its intention to acquire 100% of the Glenover mine from current shareholders. The Glenover mine is located 90 km northwest of Thabazimbi, in Limpopo. It has current reserves of phosphate, vermiculite and rare earths, for a resource life of more than 20 years.

Meanwhile, Galileo CEO Colin Bird says results of the company’s geophysics and geochemistry work on the Bulawayo gold project, in Zimbabwe, coupled with small-scale mining activity in the area, added to Galileo’s confidence in the prospect.

Particularly, wide-spaced soil sampling traverses along the northern part of the Bembeshi Trend have delineated a 1.5-km-long gold anomaly, with individual soil samples returning analytical values of 231 parts per billion (ppb), 523 ppb and 1 458 ppb gold.

At the Queens West area, a detailed ground magnetic survey has identified seven priority targets, with five already being followed up by soil sampling, mapping and prospecting.

Galileo confirms that, given encouraging results to date from the Bembeshi and Queens West areas, initial sample programmes have been extended and the company will defer proposed drilling until additional sample results have been processed.

The company will announce drill testing targets once all analysis has been concluded.

Galileo currently has a 29% interest in the Bulawayo project, held through its interest in BC Ventures. Galileo has an option to earn an additional 51% interest through spending $1.5-million on exploration and evaluation of the project by July 21, 2024.