Gold and copper exploration and development company KEFI Gold and Copper announced on Monday the discovery of a third copper-gold-zinc-silver deposit in the Hawiah Copper-Gold district by its Gold & Minerals (GMCO) joint venture.

The company, listed on the AIM sub-market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), said in a statement that GMCO discovered another Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposit, at Abu Salal, which becomes the third discovery in the Hawiah Copper-Gold district following the original Hawiah discovery in 2019, and the subsequent Al Godyer discovery in 2022.

The Hawiah discovery ranks in the top three of base metals projects in Saudi Arabia.

The Abu Salal VMS deposit is located 50km south of GMCO’s Hawiah Copper-Gold project (Hawiah) in the central portion of the Wadi Bidah Mineral Belt (Wadi Bidah), straddling GMCO’s Abu Salal North and South exploration licences.

Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, KEFI’s Executive Chairman commented: "KEFI’s first-mover advantage, through GMCO, has ensured the Company has secured some of the most prospective licences in Saudi Arabia and we believe we will continue to make significant additional discoveries, as well as expanding our existing discoveries, through our active exploration programmes, which have been running at a rate of approximately $20 million per annum for the past few years."

He noted that Ivanhoe Electric, through its joint venture with the state-owned mining company (Ma’aden), has committed to over $60 million of exploration in the kingdom, and picked up licences in and around Hawiah not held by GMCO, confirming the district as amongst their top four exploration priorities in Saudi Arabia.

GMCO is a joint venture between KEFI Gold and Copper and Saudi-based ARTAR (Abdul Rahman Saad Al-Rashid Co).

Read more: KEFI Gold and Copper announces new discovery in Jibal Qutman Gold Project in Saudi Arabia

(Editing by Anoop Menon) (anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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