It has taken just over six months for Midas Minerals to move from acquisition to drilling, a rapid transition that now sees the Australian explorer turning rigs across the historic Otavi Mountainland after securing its Namibian copper portfolio in mid-May 2025.
The company’s entry into the region began with its landmark acquisition of the Otavi Copper Project from Nexa Resources’ subsidiary, Votorantim Metals Namibia, announced on 16 May 2025. Midas paid an upfront consideration of US$3 million, with up to US$7 million in additional milestone-linked payments and a retained royalty structure under which half can be bought down for US$2 million.
The Otavi Copper Project, which spans roughly 1,776 square kilometres in the Otavi Fold Belt, is one of Namibia’s most historic and prospective copper districts, containing a portfolio of high-grade, under-explored deposits, including T-13, Deblin, and a host of satellite targets, including Segen, Devon, Hartebeespoort, and the Spaatzu zone.
These licences sit within the broader Otavi Mountainland, a folded carbonate and sediment-hosted metallogenic belt that forms part of the Pan-African Damara Orogen.
Beneath the limestone and dolomite formations lie structurally controlled sulphide zones that have historically produced copper, silver, lead, zinc and traces of gold from nearby operations such as Kombat and Tsumeb.
Much of the mineralisation in this belt occurs along folding structures, thrust contacts and breccia zones, giving rise to high-grade copper-silver sulphide bodies that often start shallow and extend at depth.
Midas has also secured an option over the adjacent South Otavi Project, a 195-square-kilometre package historically mapped for copper-silver-gold anomalies, including the eight-kilometre Deutsche Erde mineralised trend and several zones where historic soil geochemistry indicates multi-metal potential.
Regulatory approvals from the Ministry of Industries, Mines and Energy were granted in August 2025, clearing the way for licence transfer and enabling Midas to mobilise exploration teams.
The company strengthened its balance sheet soon after, raising A$11.5 million in September to finance acquisition costs, geophysical work, drilling and early development studies across the Otavi corridor.
Combined with earlier capital, Midas entered the final quarter of the year with more than A$15 million in available cash, positioning it to move quickly.
That pace is now visible on the ground.
By December 2025, Midas had commenced an aggressive drilling program, deploying two diamond rigs at the T-13 copper-silver deposit and rolling out a reverse-circulation rig at Spaatzu.
The initial focus is to verify extensive historical drill intercepts, including intersections such as 17.2 metres at 7.24% copper and 144 grams per tonne silver, 45 metres at 2.43% copper and 54.9 g/t silver, and deeper hits of 11 metres at 5.18% copper and more than 130 g/t silver. At Deblin, historic work recorded six metres at over 16% copper and substantial silver credits, while other holes intercepted copper-silver-gold sulphide zones at depths between 300 and 450 metres. These known intervals suggest the presence of both shallow, open-pittable mineralisation and deeper, structurally controlled sulphide systems typical of the Otavi Mountainland.
Assay results from the current campaign are expected to underpin the company’s first JORC-compliant resource estimate, tentatively targeted for early 2026.
The Otavi ground is rich in legacy data, boasting decades’ worth of old drill core, geophysical surveys and soil sampling that were never fully integrated into a modern geological model.
Less than half of the 1,776-square-kilometre tenure has seen systematic contemporary exploration, leaving large tracts where anomalies remain untested.
Beneath these untested zones lie contact horizons between carbonates and deeper-water sediments where sulphide mineralisation often pools, creating the potential for blind high-grade systems that historic drilling never reached.
With prospectivity stretching from the T-13 and Deblin corridors in the north to gold-silver-copper anomalies in South Otavi, the company believes it has the scale and geological diversity to define multiple copper-silver deposits in a district long considered one of southern Africa’s most overlooked base-metal provinces.
In the broader context of Namibia’s rising copper narrative — which includes resurgent interest in the Kalahari Copper Belt, new players entering the central regions, and renewed investment in brownfields assets — Midas Minerals’ rapid operational start places it at the centre of a renewed Otavi revival.
