Venture Minerals has ended the year with a bang after new drilling at its Mount Lindsay tin-tungsten project in Tasmania included a monster-sized 147m drill intersection going 1 per cent tin and 0.2 per cent tungsten. The latest stellar results sent the company’s share price soaring by more than 27 per cent in intraday trading.
The 147m intersection also included a 114m hit grading 1.2 per cent tin and 0.2 per cent tungsten from 93m.
Other notable results include a 99m hit grading 1.4 per cent tin and 0.2 per cent tungsten or 1.6 per cent tin equivalent from 93m.
Remarkably, Venture says the hole is still open down hole, leaving the door ajar for potentially more high-grade tin hits.
The new hole perforated the company’s main tin magnetite skarn at Mount Lindsay and the campaign is continuing to pepper the zone's high-grade Macdonald shoot in pursuit of high-grade sectors. Venture will run a similar play at a nearby skarn where it will home in on its high grade Radford shoot.
According to the company, its recent work is aimed at confirming the continuity of high grade zones and shoring up its metallurgical samples enroute to an updated feasibility study for an underground mine.
Venture Minerals’ Managing Director, Andrew Radonjic said:“This new drilling at Mount Lindsay, focused on the high grade zones, is starting to unveil the exceptional value that Mount Lindsay truly holds. At current metal prices, this 147 metre drill intersection has an average recovered value of A$680 per tonne, taking into account metallurgical recovery test work from our previous feasibility study. This high value per tonne makes Mount Lindsay a very attractive proposition for underground mining.”
The importance of Venture’s huge drill hit is underlined by the current price of tin which has been on a tear in recent times and is now hovering around historical highs of US$39,000 per tonne amid its ongoing use as a key component in the production of lithium-ion batteries.
By way of comparison copper is currently trading at just over US$9300 a tonne.
Venture’s Mount Lindsay project takes in about 148 square kilometres of ground in Tasmania’s north-west and is considered to be one of the world’s largest undeveloped tin projects. Recent estimates at the Mount Lindsay project point to around 81,000 tonnes of contained tin and a tungsten resource that boasts about 3.2 million metric tonne units of tungsten trioxide.
Venture’s Mount Lindsay project is in the right neighbourhood too with the revered Renison Bell tin mine only 30 kilometres away.
Renison is widely considered to be one of the world’s largest and highest-grade tin mines and it has to-date churned out over 230,000 tonnes of metal. Recent resource estimates at Renison weigh in at 18.55 million tonnes grading 1.57 per cent tin for 291,600 tonnes of contained metal.
Amid a bullish tin market that has seen the price of the sought after metal touch near record highs of around US$39,000 per tonne, Venture’s big tin hit will no doubt be a welcome relief for its market followers.
And whilst it may well be temping for Venture MD Andrew Radonjic to turn his cap backwards as he crosses his legs on the boardroom table, there is more to be done – and particularly so given the mineralisation is still open downhole. Watch this space.
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