Arcadia Minerals, domiciled in Guernsey, has six projects under 11 EPLs in Karas, Hardap, and Karibib.
Of the six projects, Arcadia Minerals reports progress at two—the Swanson Tantalum Project and the Kum-Kum Nickel Project.
The Swanson Tantalum Project is about 15 km north of the Orange River in the //Karas region.
Arcadia Minerals owns 49.6% of the Orange River Pegmatites through its subsidiary, Arc-Explore Minerals.
Orange River Pegmatites, in turn, owns mining license 223 within EPL 5047, under which the Swanson Tantalum Project falls.
According to its 2024 annual report, Arcadia Minerals conducted fieldwork over the Swanson Tantalum Project under EPL 5047 and 7295.
The company expects the Swanson tantalum mining project to be in production by Q3 2025.
In May 2024, Arcadia Minerals said the Swanson project was expected to be in production by Q1/2025 (Arcadia Minerals banking on HeBei Construction to generate cash to develop Namibian projects—The Extractor Magazine).
The Chinese company, HeBei Construction, which owns 49% of the Swanson project, has financial problems and is retrenching all the workers.
The company explored the licenses by taking 48 rock chip samples over eight outcropping pegmatites of the more than 200 known pegmatites.
The eight pegmatites are located on EPL 5047 and within trucking distance from the Swanson Mine.
Three of the eight pegmatites showed elevated tantalum mineralization.
Eleven of the 48 samples taken over the pegmatites delivered grades of more than 233 ppm Ta2O5, the cut-off grade used for the Swanson Mineral Resource.
The road construction to the plant site has been ongoing.
Other activities were mainly aimed at the final design work for the water pipeline, power supply, the plant’s civil works, and processing equipment procurement.
The company appointed Eugene Barrington Coetzee as the project manager to oversee the construction of the Swanson Tantalum Mine.
Coetzee will also offer strategic planning, project execution, commissioning, and bringing the operation into production.
The manufacturing of long lead equipment consisting of multi-gravity separators and spiral circuits was completed, with deliveries expected in Q3 2024.
Arcadia has an 80% stake in the Kum-Kum project under EPL 7295, which Orange River Pegmatite holds.
The Kum-Kum Nickel Project is prospective for nickel, copper, and platinum group elements.
Arcadia Minerals has planned a large-scale exploration program scheduled for 2025.
Additional drilling is needed at the Bitterwasser Brines Project to determine a resource.
The Bitterwasser Project is prospective for lithium-in-brines.
Arcadia Minerals expects to conduct a pre-economic assessment to determine high-level economics.
The Bitterwasser Clays Project is prospective for lithium in clays.
Arcadia Minerals is geochemically sampling and mapping the TVC Lithium and Tantalum Project to drill for prospective pegmatites.
The Karibib Copper and Gold project will be explored further through diamond drilling and trenching.
