The licensing round for exploration licences was launched by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIMR) in early 2023. In August, Royal Road established a 50/50 partnership with Saudi Arabian investment holding company MIDU to bid on these exploration rights.
The new Al-Miyah licences cover approximately 234 km2 of historic known copper and gold occurrences, hosted in upper Proterozoic age meta-volcanic and intrusive rocks within the prospective Nabitah-Tathlith belt.
Historic exploration
Historic exploration work was focused on volcanic massive sulphide deposits and was conducted by the French geological survey in 1969. This work, which comprised geological mapping, trenching and sampling, identified mineralized gossans at two prospect areas known as Al Miyah and Hishashat-al Hawi.
In 1979, Riofinex (a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc) conducted ground geophysics at the Al Miyah prospect and identified a 1.5-km-long and 200-metre-wide magnetic anomaly corresponding to a corridor of mineralized gossan. Historic samples returned up to 2.4% copper and 3.2 grams per tonne gold.
During field reconnaissance, Royal Road revisited the known potential at Al Miyah and Hishashat-al Hawi and identified new gossans, shear-zone and vein-hosted occurrences. Grab samples returned 5.9% copper and 1.3 g/t gold from gossan, and 1.2% copper and 1.1 g/t gold from a vein-hosted occurrence.
The team also completed a pXRF soil survey along a newly identified mineralized shear zone that was traced for approximately 1 km in strike length at the Hishashat-al Hawi prospect.
Drilling commitment
The company believes the exploration licences could host intrusion-related and structurally controlled copper and gold mineralization, with immediate exploration objectives evident along strike extensions to the Al Miyah magnetic corridor and along the newly identified shear zone at Hishashat-al Hawi.
As a result, it intends to conduct detailed field mapping and grid-based auger soil sampling across both known prospect areas and new target areas, as well as utilizing its drone-borne hyperspectral scanner, magnetometer and radiometer, with a view to identifying drill targets before the end of 2024.
“It’s been 45 years since exploration work was conducted at Al-Miyah. Commodity focus and our understanding of exploration geology has changed profoundly since then,” Royal Road CEO Dr. Tim Coughlin said in a news release. “Our team have identified immediate copper and gold potential at known historic occurrences and at new prospects throughout the licence areas.”
The tender was a merit-based process, subject to a proposed exploration program, minimum expenditure commitments and the provision of a performance financial guarantee, to be provided by a recognized Saudi Arabian financial institution, Royal Road said.
The company added that it has committed $3.9 million in exploration activities for the first two years, which will be results dependent, subject to surrender of the performance financial guarantee. It will be eligible for MIMR reimbursements of up to $1.1 million per exploration licence.
