Australian exploration company Venture Minerals Limited announced a substantial resource upgrade for the Company’s Mt Lindsay tin/tungsten deposit in north west Tasmania. This follows a major infill and extensional drill program in preparation for a pending pre-feasibility study. The resource is now estimated at 43 million tonnes containing 82,000 tonnes of tin at a tin equivalent cut-off grade of 0.2%. Higher grade portions of the orebody amount to 10 Mt containing 38,000 tonnes of tin. Venture’s current plans are based on treating only the higher grade ore, to produce some 3,000 tpy of contained tin starting from 2013.
In a statement the company noted that “combined resources at Mt Lindsay now extend over a total strike of 3.9 kilometres with a further 34 strike kilometres of skarn targets still to be explored. The latest resource has further substantiated that the mineralized zones at Mt Lindsay are shallow plunging, typically outcrop at surface, and average 15-20 metres in width, making them very amenable to open pit mining”. Venture currently has six drill rigs at the site. Following a successful capital raising the company is now fully funded for on-going exploration and feasibility studies with A$28 million in cash.
