Date: Dec 14, 2018
ASX listed small cap explorer Venus Metals has completed a comprehensive resource definition drilling program at its Youanmi vanadium oxide project, located south of Sandstone in WA.
The company completed nearly 6,000 metres of shallow RC drilling on a tight grid spacing over about 2km of strike and up to 400m wide on the strongly oxidised ore system.
This is in preparation for an update to the mineral resource estimate for the project, which currently sits at 110.6 million tonnes grading 0.3% vanadium in the lower confidence inferred category of classification.
The detailed drill out will allow Venus to convert a large part of this inferred resource into a measured and indicated oxide resource, from which ore reserves can be optimised and more detailed economic studies can then commence.
The company said that assays of drill samples from the program are pending and that the updated mineral resource is scheduled for release in January.
In addition, the drilling also delivered more than 100 tonnes of sample to further advance metallurgical test work studies on the Youanmi vanadium oxide ores.
In early September, Venus announced encouraging preliminary metallurgical work on oxidised ore composites with vanadium recoveries of nearly 70% from simple acid leach testing.
As an added bonus, that test work also managed to suck out most of the valuable nickel, copper and cobalt credits from the solution.
The beauty of the Youanmi vanadium deposits is the strong weathering of the ore grade materials right from surface and down to about 30-50m depth.
