Caledonia drilling at Motapa points to longer life for Bilboes gold project

Caledonia Mining Corporation has published results from its 2025 exploration programme at Motapa, a property that shares a lease boundary with its Bilboes gold project in Zimbabwe, and says the drilling strengthens the case for treating the two as a single mining complex.

The standout numbers come from Motapa North, where historic oxide open pits sit roughly 250 metres south of the Bilboes boundary. Reverse-circulation hole JPRC52 returned 19 metres at 8.08g/t gold, diamond hole JDD11 cut 6.38 metres at 13.95g/t and JPRC63 intersected 12 metres at 7.12g/t. Several other holes returned widths of 13 to 17 metres at grades between 3.25g/t and 4.31g/t. At Mpudzi, on the Motapa Central trend, results were lower grade but shallow, including 7 metres at 2.39g/t, with drilling confirming oxidised material from surface to around 35 metres in places. All widths quoted are down-hole.

A 6km shear zone beside a 1.75Moz reserve

Motapa lies about 110km north of Bulawayo in the Bubi District of Matabeleland North and is held under a mining lease of roughly 2,200 hectares. It covers about 6km of a sheared zone on the Bubi Greenstone Belt, with three mineralised footprints named Motapa North, Central and South. Work began in 2023 with mapping, geophysics and trenching. In 2025 Caledonia completed 22,364 metres of trenching, 18,547 metres of RC drilling and about 1,562 metres of diamond drilling, concentrating on sulphide mineralisation at Motapa North and oxide potential at Mpudzi. Motapa South received limited attention and is due more work.

The strategic logic is proximity. Bilboes, immediately to the north, carries proven and probable reserves of 1.75 million ounces in 24.1 million tonnes at 2.26g/t and is being developed as a large open-pit operation. Motapa North's historic pits are only a few hundred metres from the planned Bilboes metallurgical plant, which raises the prospect of trucking Motapa ore to shared infrastructure rather than building a separate plant.

Chief executive Mark Learmonth said in the company's announcement that the priority remains building Bilboes, with first gold targeted in the fourth quarter of 2028, but that Motapa "represents a compelling opportunity to extend mine life and increase future production across a combined mining complex".

Next step: a maiden resource

Caledonia said it expected to publish a maiden mineral resource estimate for parts of Motapa in the third quarter of 2026. That estimate will be the first real test of how many ounces the drilling can support and whether Motapa can materially lengthen the 10-year-plus life currently planned at Bilboes.

For Zimbabwe, the results add weight to a Bilboes development that, once operating, is expected to become the country's largest gold mine, at a time when small-scale miners supply most of the gold the country produces.

Sources

• Nasdaq (ACCESS Newswire release): Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc: Motapa Exploration Results, 10 Jun 2026

Photo: Bulawayo City Hall in Zimbabwe; the Motapa and Bilboes properties lie about 110km north of the city. Scott.wheeler, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.