London-listed Power Metal Resources has signed a diamond drilling contract with 100% Botswana citizen-owned Mindea Exploration and Drilling Services to carry out a planned programme of about 2 600 m of diamond drilling across an expected six drill holes at the Molopo Farms complex project, in south-western Botswana, which is targeting a large-scale nickel/copper/platinum group element (PGE) discovery.

Mindea's base of operations is only 98 km from Molopo Farms, allowing for quick and efficient mobilisation of crews and equipment, with the expected mobilisation and drilling start date scheduled for mid-September.

The drilling will be paid for on a part-cash, part-equity basis, with more than 50% of the expected contract cost to be satisfied through the issue of up to ten-million new ordinary shares in the company of 0.1p each at an issue price of 2.25p a share. These drilling cost shares will be issued by Power Metal within one month of the completion of drilling.

"It has been an incredible effort by the team to put us in the position to launch expedited drilling at Molopo Farms only a matter of weeks after the discovery, through geophysical surveys, of a new and very compelling conductor,” Power Metal CEO Paul Johnson said on August 30.

The electromagnetic conductor, the edge of which was intersected by a previous diamond drill hole at a similar stratigraphic level to a broad nickel sulphide mineralisation interval, represents a high-priority target during the upcoming drilling programme, he explained.

Johnson said the potential of the drill programme was demonstrated by Mindea choosing to take a significant portion of the contract costs in Power Metal shares.

“Now the real work begins, with the few weeks prior to drilling commencement to be used to undertake the expanded geophysical surveys to confirm precision drill targeting . . . and the follow-up surveys . . . That survey work is underway currently,” Johnson said.

He added that further Molopo Farms drilling updates were expected prior to and following mobilisation, alongside updates in respect of the expanded geophysics drill target generation programme.

Power Metal has a 53% effective economic interest in Molopo Farms, held through a direct project interest and a shareholding in partner Kalahari Key Mineral Exploration (KKME).

On May 18, Power Metal announced a conditional transaction that would result in its interest in Molopo Farms increasing to 87.71%.

As part of this transaction, Power Metal will become the project operator and, in advance of completion, it is working with the team at KKME to maintain momentum with regard to exploration.

Workstreams are also in process to secure Botswana regulatory approvals enabling the transaction to complete, the company said.