Power Metal Resources (LSE:POW) crossed another significant milestone in its lightning quick progression of the highly prospective Tati gold-nickel project last Wednesday.

In an announcement, the globally-focused metal explorer revealed that the two licences comprising the asset have now been successfully transferred into its name­. Excitingly, this development makes Tati the company’s first 100% owned project in Botswana–an African nation widely heralded for its accommodating approach to mining legislation and foreign investment.

Tati itself represents a particularly unique opportunity, sitting within the site of southern Africa’s first-ever gold rush close to the Zimbabwe border. Specifically, the project is located within what is known as the Tati Greenstone Belt, a prolific area within Botswana that boasts multiple historical and currently active nickel and gold mines.

Despite the plethora of current mining activity within the Tati Greenstone Belt, Power Metal believes that select areas remain significantly underexplored by modern standards. As stated in Wednesday’s release:

“The Company believes [that the area is] underexplored by modern standards and systematic exploration focussing on areas with sand cover and geophysics targeting greater depths are likely to yield further gold and nickel discoveries.”

This is why Power Metal–which also boasts exploration interests in the US and Australia­–jumped at the chance to enter an option to acquire 100% of the project in May of last year, which it exercised just two months later.

Since taking ownership of Tati, Power Metal has grasped every opportunity available to advance the Project. In particular, it has focused on assessing the potential of the asset’s orogenic gold and magmatic nickel mineralisation. After all, the ground that Tati covers is believed to represent the southern extent of the intrusions hosting the historically significant Phoenix, Selkirk, and Tekwane nickel mines.

The company began by launching a due diligence work programme, which identified a number of “kilometre-scale” nickel and gold-in-soil anomalies that were confirmed with subsequent ground exploration work. Then, in October last year, the company launched a maiden drilling campaign to target these anomalies far ahead of schedule. This comprised 23 reverse circulation drillholes for a total of 1,092m, testing multiple nickel and gold targets.

Power Metal is currently awaiting assays from this work, which will guide future exploration and drilling campaigns across Tati. And now, with the project entirely under its ownership, the company is positioned perfectly to continue moving exploration forward at the quickest rate possible as results come in.

As chief executive Paul Johnson put it in Wednesday’s release:

“We have been highly proactive at the Tati Project, with multiple 2021 exploration programmes implemented which have identified multiple large-scale gold and nickel-in-soil anomalies, some of which we targeted during the recent reverse circulation drilling programme.

We very much look forward to the receipt of the assay results from the drilling programme and further steps with this exciting 100% owned opportunity.”

As exciting as the opportunity at Tati is, it’s just one spoke in a wide wheel of opportunities for Power Metal. 

A full breakdown of the company’s exploration portfolio can be found here, but perhaps the most significant update of late was the highly anticipated launch of inaugural drilling at Haneti.

Haneti is an enormously prospective nickel, copper, and platinum group metal exploration project located in Tanzania, which Power Metal is advancing alongside its London-listed peer Katoro Gold (LSE:KAT). And in a release last week, the company noted that drilling has launched with the aim drill testing multiple exciting geophysical anomalies. Of particular note, is a hole planned at a target known as Mihanza Hill, where previous work has confirmed the presence of significant mineralisation at surface to the tune of 13.6% Nickel.

At the time, Johnson noted his excitement, saying:

"The Haneti Project, targeting magmatic sulphide hosted nickel, copper and platinum group metals, represents a unique district-scale opportunity for Power Metal and our JV partner Katoro.    

The preparatory work leading up to this campaign has been extensive, though ultimately, it is deep diamond drilling that is now needed in order to broaden our understanding of the geological environments and to unlock the potential for a commercial discovery.

With some considerable enthusiasm we launch the programme and very much look forward to updates from the field, and ultimately the results of the assay testing of drill core samples which will be collected during the 2022 campaign."

The bottom line is, with Tati and Haneti representing just two of many irons currently in the fire for Power Metal, investors can expect a highly exciting ride over the next 12 month.