Von Schirnding, who has more than 25 years’ experience in mining, joined Arc Minerals in 2017. At the time, the company owned several assets, including gold in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Slovakia and copper in the north-west of Zambia.
Schirnding has formerly held senior positions at De Beers and Anglo American. Today, the company is focused on the discovery and development of its large-scale copper at its Zamsort and Zaco licences in the western part of the Zambian Copperbelt.
According to Schirnding, the last two years have all been about restructuring and they now have a very clear strategy in place. This, he adds, has worked well. Proof of this can be seen in the company’s strong balance sheet and enough funding to carry it through to 2021.
According to media reports, Zamsort and Zaco have licensed a total of areas which cover 872 km2 and include the advanced Kalaba copper-cobalt project. Up until now, Arc mineral had identified more than twelve highly skilled prospective targets at Zamzort. In June, Arc Minerals started drilling activities at its Fwiji target in the Zaco licence area. The total diamond drilling programme for the year is budgeted for an initial 8 000 m with hole depths to between 100 m and 250 m below surface.
The drilling is initially intended to confirm the interpreted anticlinal structure and mineralisation associated with the hinge component to this anticline. This will then be followed to test the mineralisation in the down-plunge hinge component to the anticline.
Consequently, Arc Mineral’s progress has already got the attention of major companies. To that end, the company has entered into a six-month exclusivity agreement with Anglo American. This means that no other company can approach Arc Minerals to form any working arrangement while the agreement is in place. According to von Schirnding, if test work shows promising results, Anglo American has a variety of options available to it to increase its interest in Zamsort including some sort of commercial agreement or a joint venture.
