Koryx Copper has completed the infill drilling programme required for the Preliminary Feasibility Study at its wholly owned Haib copper project in southern Namibia, with the latest results delivering a 318-metre intersection at 0.49% copper equivalent as the company moves into resource modelling and estimation.
The company reported results from 15 drill holes covering 6,825 metres on Wednesday, saying the latest batch continued to return wide copper-molybdenum-gold intersections, including some of the highest-grade intervals drilled at Haib to date.
Although drilling is now complete, assay results are still being received,, and Koryx expects to release further results over the coming weeks. Geological modelling and estimation for an updated Mineral Resource Estimate have started, with both the updated resource and PFS targeted for publication before the end of 2026.
Hole HM178 returned 669m at 0.33% CuEq from surface, including the standout intersection of 318m at 0.49% CuEq from 162m to 480m.
On a copper-only basis, the 318m interval graded 0.44% copper and included 10m at 0.92% copper from 214m and 8m at 1.06% copper from 240m.
Koryx said molybdenum was well developed from about 160m down the hole and contributed to the higher copper-equivalent grade, while gold was also encountered in two four-metre intervals grading above 0.1 grams per tonne.
Another hole, HM180, returned 732m at 0.30% CuEq from surface, including 286m at 0.37% CuEq from 446m. Higher-grade sections included 26m at 0.61% CuEq from 136m.
HMRC009 intersected 642m at 0.30% CuEq from surface, including 108m at 0.40% CuEq from 302m and 49m at 0.42% CuEq from 249m, while HMRC008 returned 558m at 0.29% CuEq, including 14m at 0.59% CuEq.
Koryx also reported one of its higher-grade copper intersections from HM179, which returned 32m at 0.96% copper from 224m, including 10m at 1.65% copper from 234m.
On a copper-equivalent basis, the wider interval returned 32m at 1.06% CuEq.
The company said the high-grade mineralisation occurs about 70m south of the current copper model, potentially indicating an additional lobe of high-grade mineralisation not yet incorporated into the geological interpretation.
Koryx cautioned that the new zone’s impact on the project’s mineral resource remains to be determined.
HM158, meanwhile, returned 609m at 0.29% CuEq from surface, including 374m at 0.34% CuEq from surface.
The latest results also include higher-grade intervals beginning at or close to surface, with Koryx highlighting intersections of 12m at 2.55% CuEq from surface and 10m at 1.78% CuEq among the wider batch of results.
Completing the PFS drilling programme moves Haib into the next stage of technical evaluation, with the new drilling data incorporated into geological modelling and a fresh Mineral Resource Estimate.
Koryx president and chief executive Heye Daun said the company remained on schedule to publish both the resource update and PFS before the end of the year.
The updated resource will replace the March 2026 Mineral Resource Estimate, which increased Haib’s contained copper inventory to approximately 3.5 million tonnes while reducing the expected stripping ratio from 1.74 to 0.92.
That resource update was intended as an intermediate step, with Koryx continuing a major infill and expansion campaign specifically to provide the geological information required for the PFS.
The March estimate also identified a higher-grade portion of the resource grading about 0.40% CuEq, which the company said could support more than 15 years of mine life before considering the project’s much larger lower-grade mineralised halo.
Haib is being assessed as a large-scale open-pit copper-molybdenum-gold operation using conventional sulphide milling and flotation. However, Koryx has continued to modify the processing configuration as metallurgical work progresses.
Recent PFS work has included testing coarse particle flotation and material sorting to reject barren material before conventional flotation, with Koryx examining whether these technologies can increase the grade entering the flotation circuit while reducing processing requirements.
The company said in June that coarse particle flotation could potentially allow the milling and flotation circuit to process up to 25% more material through the same circuit, while test work indicated that material sorting could reject about 12% to 20% of run-of-mine feed mass while losing approximately 6% to 12% of the contained copper.
With drilling now concluded, the outstanding assays, updated resource model and engineering work will feed into the PFS scheduled before the end of 2026.
The latest 318m intersection and the high-grade zone encountered outside the existing copper model could influence that resource update, but their effect on tonnes, grade and the eventual PFS mine plan will only be established once Koryx completes the new geological model and Mineral Resource Estimate.
