ASX-listed Venture Minerals’ Tasmanian tin search continues to pay dividends with drilling at its Mount Lindsay project intersecting 11m of sulphide-rich skarn. The latest discovery follows the company’s recent success targeting extensions of the Renison mine sequence that coughed up a 16m interval of sulphide-rich magnetite skarn located some 12 kilometres along strike of the world-class Renison Bell tin mine.
Encouragingly, the company says the drill hole was designed to test along strike and down plunge of the highly prospective Mount Lindsay skarns that host Venture’s tin-tungsten deposits. According to the company, the 11m of sulphide-rich skarn intercepted is typical of the mineralisation at its serious Mount Lindsay tin and tungsten deposit just 1km away.
Assay results from the latest hole are pending and will no doubt be highly anticipated by the market. A downhole EM survey has been conducted in the interim to enable the company to better define the mineralisation and assist with further targeted drilling.
Previous drilling of Mount Lindsay skarns has coughed up some impressive hits including 26m at 2.5 per cent tin, 18m at 2.2 per cent tin and 12m at 1.7 per cent tungsten trioxide.
Venture Minerals Managing Director, Andrew Radonjic said:
“Further success from the first exploration drill program at Mount Lindsay since 2013, clearly demonstrates the potential of the project to deliver another tin discovery. The first two of twelve priority drill targets from the 48 EM anomalies delineated by the 2019 EM survey have already intersected potential tin-bearing skarns, thereby increasing the potential to significantly grow the current tin resource base.”
“Not only does Venture hold a major landholding in a premier tin district, it is also well located in a globally recognised tier one ESG hub, allowing the Company the opportunity to develop an ESG compliant Tin-Tungsten mine.”
Venture’s Mount Lindsay tenure covers 148 square kilometres in the north-west of Tasmania and hosts one of the largest undeveloped tin projects in the world with more than 80,000 tonnes of contained tin, coupled with a globally significant tungsten resource of about 3.2 million metric tonne units of tungsten trioxide.
With the world-class Renison Bell tin mine located nearby, Mount Lindsay has excellent access to existing infrastructure including hydropower, water, sealed roads, rail and port facilities.
Renison remains one of the largest and highest-grade tin mines in the world and has produced more than 230,000 tonnes of the meta. Today, the mine still boasts an 18.55 million tonne resource at 1.57 per cent tin for 291,600 tonnes of contained metal.
The discovery of two new skarn zones, one within the Renison mine sequence and the other along strike of Mount Lindsay’s main tin deposits, will only enhance the company’s project which is already classified by the Australian Government as a ‘critical minerals project’.
Critical minerals are considered vital for the economic well-being of the world’s major and emerging economies.
Tin is being increasingly utilised as part of the growing electric vehicle revolution with the silver metal finding a place in a range of vehicle and electrical components in addition to being a critical component in the production of lithium-ion batteries. The International Tin Association is predicting a surge in demand driven by the lithium-ion battery market of up to 60,000 tonnes per annum by 2030.
With the price of tin soaring last week to record highs of US$38,000 per tonne, nearly four times higher than copper, market observers will be keen to see if Venture can add to the already significant resource base at Mount Lindsay in the world-class Tasmanian tin fields.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
