MTR.L Share News (MTR)

(ShareCast News) - Natural resources investor Metal Tiger and Australian firm MOD Resources updated the market on their diamond drilling programme in Botswana on Thursday, advancing the project towards what it hoped would be commercialisation.The companies, traded on the AIM and ASX respectively, are 30%-70% partners in the joint venture project in the Kalahari Copper Belt.In the announcement, the venture confirmed that the resource drilling programme had commenced at the T3 prospect, with the objective of delineating a maiden mineral resource as the first step towards supporting a conceptual open pit mining study.The completion of the drilling is planned for the third quarter of this year.Resource drilling will concentrate on the current 800 metre strike length of the T3 deposit, it reported, delineating the upper and lower copper/silver mineralisation from around 60 metres to 200 metres vertical depth.Additional samples will be taken to enable metallurgical testwork on the copper/silver mineralisation, with the planned programme consisting of 29 diamond core drill holes at 100 metre collar spacing.Geophysical survey work has also helped delineate further drill targets in the vicinity of T3, the companies announced."We are pleased to confirm that the joint venture partnership with MOD resources has now moved to a more advanced level with an agreement that resource drilling should be undertaken at the T3 prospect," Metal Tiger CEO Paul Johnson commented.He said resource identification and development companies should be focused on commercial development, and with the findings from its work to date at T3 the company was "very much focused" on obtaining the best commercial outcome."This requires the joint venture to quantify a mineral resource at T3 and it is good to see this being undertaken, particularly as this work is occurring at such an early stage in our exploration of the Kalahari Copper Belt."The venture has multiple significant targets to pursue within its licence area, however advancement of T3 is a justifiable commercial focus," Johnson added.At 1520 BST, shares in Metal Tiger were down 3.03% at 3.39p.