JERSEY-DOMICILED miner, Caledonia Mining Corporation, has found encouraging high-grade results from its ongoing resource expansion drill programme at Blanket Mine.
Caledonia aims to sweat its Blanket Mine to build up cash reserves of up to US$60 million by year-end for future commitments and exploration efforts.
The miner is aiming for this to leverage record gold prices as it anticipates producing between 74 000 78 000 ounces of gold from Blanket Mine this year, from 76 656 ounces recorded last year.
During an investor presentation meeting last month, Caledonia revealed that the mine is expected to generate US$100 million in revenue this year.
“Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc is pleased to report further encouraging high-grade results from the ongoing resource expansion drill programme at Caledonia’s 64% owned Blanket Mine,” the miner said in a statement.
“The programme is aimed at evaluating the continuity of the mineralised zones on the Blanket, Eroica and Lima orebodies (which comprise three of the main orebodies at Blanket Mine).”
Caledonia is a Zimbabwe-focused exploration, development and mining corporation that owns the local gold-producing Blanket Mine, Bilboes Mine, and the Motapa and Maligreen gold mining claims.
The 2025 capital expenditure programme totals US$41 million, with US$34,1 million allocated to Blanket and US$6,9 million to Bilboes and Motapa.
- Caledonia profits up 16% after record production
- Power crisis pushes Blanket Mine into fresh costs
- Caledonia profits up 16% after record production
- Caledonia splurges US$4m on Zim gold mine
Keep Reading
“The objectives of the programme are to increase the confidence levels of the existing mineral resource and to grow the mineral resource estimate below the 34 level of the mine (1110 metres). These results follow the previously announced results on January 30, 2024,” Caledonia said.
According to the miner, results from drilling 6 976 metres of underground drilling from January 2024 to the end of April 2025 indicate that the existing Blanket and Eroica orebodies have grades and widths that are generally better than expected.
“A new potential orebody has been intersected in the Blanket orebody area of the mine, with impressive grades and widths,” Caledonia said.
Results from the drilling campaign reveal that Blanket Mine continues to confirm the continuation of several of the main orebodies. These are the Blanket, Eroica and Lima orebodies at depth at the lowest levels of the mine and beyond.
Caledonia noted that the increased density of drilling intersections from the programme is aimed at upgrading the inferred mineral resource estimate to the indicated mineral resource category or better, providing a solid resource base for life of mine planning.
Further, the grades and widths in the results from the Blanket and Eroica orebodies have been generally better than previously expected and modelled.
“Our ongoing drilling campaign continues to demonstrate encouraging results, further improving our confidence in the Blanket Mine mineral resource and pointing to additional future mineral resource growth,” Caledonia’s chief executive officer, Mark Learmonth, said.
“The grades and widths we are seeing from this drilling campaign are as good as and, in some cases, considerably better than results from previous drilling campaigns, which is highly encouraging.
“We anticipate that the positive grades and widths will result in an increased overall mineral resource estimate, which in due course should result in the extension of the existing life of mine.”
He said the company had invested heavily in Blanket Mine over the last seven years to increase production capacity, resulting in a mine infrastructure that could sustain production beyond the current production horizon.
“Drilling is currently focused on the Blanket and Eroica orebodies, where crosscuts have been developed to allow optimal access to drill the deeper zones of the steeply-dipping orebodies,” Learmonth said.
“These results are extremely promising, and we look forward to the next phase of drilling and updating the market accordingly.”
