This one? The article is now a bit dated, but it has some interesting players...
Motapa drills up Namibian encouragement
2004-11-30 14:35 ET - Street Wire
by Will Purcell
Dr. John Gurney's Motapa Diamonds Inc. has a new cluster of kimberlites on its Kavango project in Namibia. The new finds are encouraging but expectations are low for what Motapa calls its Kaudom South cluster. The modest hopes are because of the lack of any indicator mineral promise in the vicinity. As a result, the news had little impact on the company's shares, which remain locked in a range near the $1 mark. Motapa is tracking an indicator mineral anomaly with far more promising chemistry, and future drilling will try to zero in on the source for those promotable minerals.
The Kaudom kimberlites
Motapa now has three new kimberlite finds on its large Namibian project. The play covers about 1.7 million hectares across two big blocks in the northeastern region of Namibia, just south of the Angolan border. The Kavango block spans about 1.2 million hectares on the northwestern part of Motapa's project, while the Kaudom licences cover about 470,000 hectares on the southeastern portion of the play.
The seasonal Omatako river winds its way northeastward through the core of the Kavango block, before it ultimately meets the Cubango River that forms the border with Angola. Much of the exploration effort centred in that core area, because of some promising mineral finds in the Omatako basin. Nevertheless, Motapa's recent kimberlite finds are on the southernmost part of the Kaudom block, on the southeastern fringe of the Congo craton.
Motapa's three confirmed kimberlites appear to be pipes. The KD-6 find is at the southern end of a line running northeastward through the other two discoveries. Motapa's first discovery, the KD-96 pipe, is about five kilometres northeast of KD-6, while KD-80 lies about 25 kilometres northeast of KD-6. The company thinks it has two more kimberlites about six kilometres west of that line, based on a field interpretation of drill core.
The size of the anomalies is encouraging. Based on the gravity profiles, at least three of the five bodies could have diameters ranging between 300 metres and 500 metres. Motapa is processing core samples for kimberlite indicator minerals, but based on the lack of promise from surface sampling in the area, expectations are modest at best.
The finds are promising nevertheless, as they provide added confirmation that the Kavango area is kimberlite country. Motapa plans to drill test up to 15 more targets on its project over the next few months. That work will likely concentrate on the regions north and west of the recent finds, closer to the company's main Omatako mineral anomaly.
The road to Kavango
The Motapa group has been working on its Kavango play since the mid-1990s, but gem hunters began working in the area many years before that. De Beers was likely the first explorer to try its luck with the Namibian diamond hunt. The company took up the Kavango challenge in the late 1970s, collecting surface samples and completing limited ground geophysical surveys across the region.
De Beers found its indicator mineral results intriguing, and the company ultimately found four kimberlites on what is now the southeastern portion of Motapa's play. De Beers nevertheless abandoned its hunt in the early 1980s, citing security concerns. The company's four Sikereti kimberlites were barren, and that undoubtedly made it easier to walk away.
In 1996, the Motapa partners began collecting their own mineral samples. The crews gathered nearly 500 batches, and that was enough to define a regional anomaly in the Omatako drainage basin. Through the late 1990s, Motapa collected more than 5,000 new samples and flew 32,000 kilometres of geophysics, which was enough to produce a crop of drill targets.
In 2001 and 2002, Motapa drilled 15 of its most prospective targets on the Kavango block. The company found indicator minerals in its holes, but none of the rock was kimberlitic in nature. In 2003, Motapa tested six targets on the Kaudom property.
Five of those features apparently were duds as well, but a sixth target resulted in the discovery of the KD-14 kimberlite. The pipe is just west of the Sikereti finds and about 20 kilometres southwest of the Kaudom south cluster. Like its nearby Sikereti sisters, there was little promotable value in KD-14.
Mineral sampling was not particularly promising over the area containing the Kaudom South and Sikereti clusters, but things picked up toward the north and west, on the northwestern portion of the Kaudom licence block. The mineral chemistry is especially encouraging still farther to the northwest, in the core of the Kavango block.
The Omatako indicator mineral anomaly is far more promising than anything found to the southeast, near the Kaudom kimberlites, or farther east, near the Ngamiland kimberlite cluster in the northwestern corner of Botswana. The Omatako mineral arrays include a large number of pyrope garnets and a healthy tally of eclogitic garnets. Further, the proportion of G-10 garnets is particularly promising.
All of that points to the possibility of a significantly diamondiferous kimberlite source. Based on the work so far, the most prospective area to hunt for such a source lies immediately to the southeast of the Omatako anomaly. If so, the southeastern portion of the Kavango block and the northwestern region of Kaudom would be a good place to start.
The players
Dr. Gurney and BHP Billiton Ltd. created Motapa in 1998, but the company completed its initial public offering just this summer, selling about 11.5 million shares at $1.25. The company previously had about 16.4 million shares outstanding, most of them escrowed, which were issued for an average of about 15 cents.
The largest shareholder of Motapa is Dr. Gurney's Harbour Trustees Ltd., which owns nearly seven million escrowed shares. Now in his mid-60s, Dr. Gurney spent much of his career as a professor at the University of Cape Town, and he has long been a proponent of using geochemical methods in diamond exploration.
Over the course of his 40-year career, Dr. Gurney was a busy author on diamond exploration matters. His research on the use of geochemistry and garnets is in wide use by most gem hunters. As a result, Dr. Gurney frequently popped up as a consultant on diamond projects. He spent more than a decade as a consultant with BHP, starting when the mining giant made its first foray into diamond exploration on the Ekati project in the late 1980s.
The Cape Town-based Mr. Gurney's promotional career lagged behind his academic and consulting affairs, although he did serve as chairman of Benguela Concessions, a South Africa-listed public company. That stint began in the late 1980s and ran until 1998, when he went to work on the launch of Motapa. Mr. Gurney became chairman of Motapa's board in 1998 and he continues in that capacity.
Another veteran diamond hunter, Dr. Lawrence Ott, became Motapa's chief executive officer late in 1998. A resident of Cortez, in southwestern Colorado, Dr. Ott worked for several companies in the pursuit of resources and BHP hired him in 1988, when it was spooling up its diamond exploration program. Now in his mid-40s, Dr. Ott spent more than 10 years with BHP Diamonds, working as the company's exploration manager. He also had a role in developing Ekati.
Dr. Gurney and Dr. Ott developed the exploration strategy for BHP Diamonds during the 1990s. That plan included the creation of Motapa as a separate entity. BHP contributed several grassroots projects to Motapa in exchange for a 35-per-cent equity interest in the fledgling company. Since then, BHP put up more than $14-million for Motapa's exploration effort. BHP currently owns about 2.3 million escrowed shares.
With the active role of BHP, it is understandable that several of Motapa's directors have a past involvement with the company. James Rothwell was the president of BHP Diamonds from 1997 to 2000, when he took a similar position with Dia Met Minerals Ltd. The new job did not last long, as BHP bought Dia Met in a friendly takeover the following year.
Mr. Rothwell popped up on the boards of a few diamond hunters since then, providing some added promotional experience. Kensington Resources Ltd. made him a director in 2002, and Motapa added the 55-year-old to its board this past summer. Mr. Rothwell, who has a background in economics, business administration and marketing, devoted most of his time to the resource sector over his 30-year career.
Another Motapa director with a BHP past is the Calgary-based Raymond Morley, who joined the company's board earlier this year. Mr. Morley followed a degree in geology with an MBA and went to work in the resource sector nearly 40 years ago. He worked for BHP until 1999 in various roles. Mr. Morley is a director of two other Canadian-listed resource companies, McVicar Resources Inc. and Tiberon Minerals Ltd.
A California-based investment commentator with a degree in journalism joined Motapa's board in 2001. Now in his mid-50s, Robert Bishop is best known as the editor and publisher of the Gold Mining Stock Report, an electronic service providing commentary on junior resource companies since 1983. Mr. Bishop is also a director of FCMI Precious Metals Fund Inc.
Also directors of Motapa are the Vancouver-based Duane Poliquin, who is also the president of Almaden Minerals Ltd., and Mark Allen, a Cape Town resident who is Motapa's chief financial officer. The London-based Dr. Theodore Laub rounds out Motapa's eight-man board. Mr. Laub's Evansia Investments Ltd. is a major shareholder of Motapa, holding about three million escrowed shares.
Motapa closed at $1 on Monday, unchanged on the day.
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