Elementos Limited’s (ASX:ELT) is on target with its campaign to convert existing Inferred Resources into Indicated Resources at its flagship Oropesa Tin Project in Spain following confirmation that significant zones of mineralisation have been intersected at the project in early drilling.
The company started 5000m of diamond drilling across 47 holes at Oropesa in early October 2020 as part of a wider optimisation program designed to increase the project’s overall resource, annual production rate and mine life.
Elementos Chairman Andy Greig says the drilling results to date are very pleasing.
ALS Laboratories in Ireland has confirmed from core assays that our first five drilling holes to have targeted mineralisation in zones categorised as Inferred Resources in the current geological resource were successful,” Mr Greig said.
“The results from these drill holes will be included in the generation and classification of a new geological resource for Oropesa at the conclusion of this drilling programme.”
Mr Greig said a sixth drill hole, P53, targeting an Induced Polarisation (IP) anomaly 600m to the northwest of the current geological resource intersected semi-massive sulphides from 188.9 – 190.1m for 1.2m @ 0.24% Sn.
“Buoyed by the results to date, sampling and assay of drill core from an additional five diamond drill holes is currently underway,” Mr Greig said.
Significant zones of mineralisation include:
- Expn_011:- 14.2m @ 0.25% Sn from 55.4m
- Expn_011:- 3.1m @ 0.24% Sn from 77.0m
- Expn_012:- 1.3m @ 0.39% Sn from 51.4m
- Expn_020:- 3.9m @ 0.63% Sn from 36.5m
- Expn_021A:- 7.1m @ 0.22% Sn from 43.2m
- Expn_021B:- 9.8m @ 0.22% Sn from 19.5m
The company’s drilling programme follows the release of the Oropesa Economic Study in May 2020, which positioned the project as a low cost, globally significant new tin development with a prospective annual production of 2,440 tonnes of tin-in-concentrate over a 14-year mine life. The Economic Study was completed with a tin price of US$19,750 per tonne. Today the LME tin price is over US21,000 per tonne.
The programme was initially planned for 42 diamond drill holes but was subsequently expanded to include an additional five holes with potential to contain unconfirmed shallow tin resources.
The programme’s three principal objectives are:
- To convert existing Inferred Resources into Indicated Resources to improve the overall waste-to-ore stripping ratio,
- Confirmation of near surface, possibly fault controlled mineralisation currently excluded from the 2017 geological resource model, and
- Testing for additional near surface resources from exploration targets identified from Induced Polarisation (IP) geophysical survey anomalies.
Sondeos & Perforaciones Industriales Del Bierzo, SA (SPIB) has been contracted to complete the program of work under a contract that has been signed with Elementos’ Spanish subsidiary Minas De Estano de Espana (MESPA).
