Nov 25:Venture Minerals owns one of world's largest undeveloped tin projects at Mt Lindsay

Venture Minerals owns one of world's largest undeveloped tin projects at Mt Lindsay
At a time when the tin price continues to outperform other base metals, Venture Minerals' (ASX: VMS) exploration drilling over the past three years has delivered one of the largest undeveloped tin projects in the world.
Following a major infill and extensional drill program in preparation for the company’s pending pre-feasibility study, Venture Minerals has substantially upgraded the resource  for its flagship Mt Lindsay Tin/Tungsten Deposit in North-West Tasmania, delivering a 28% increase in tin metal to 120,000 tonnes of contained tin and tungsten.

Significantly, over 75% of the previous inferred resource has now been converted to the indicated category (at a 0.35% & 0.45% tin equivalent cut-off).

Combined resources at Mt Lindsay now extend over a total strike of 3.9kms with a further 34 strike kilometres of skarn targets still to be explored.

With tin prices on the London Metals Exchange currently hovering around the $US25,000 per tonne level, with probable supply deficit conditions for the tin market, the timing of the resource increase at Mt Lindsay could not have been better. 

With the new resource base, Venture will gain a substantial platform to complete the prefeasibility study, and a catalyst for Venture to move to development and ultimately production and monetisation.

That today's resource increase at the Mt Lindsay Project has been delivered from testing only 10% of the Company’s skarn targets is all the more impressive.

Importantly, the mineralized zones at Mt Lindsay are shallow plunging, typically outcrop at surface, and average 15-20m in width, making them very amenable to open pit mining.

Venture currently has six drill rigs at site targeting down plunge extensions to the Main Skarn, No.2 Skarn, Stanley River South and Reward, as well as drill testing multiple exploration targets.

Following the recent capital raisings, Venture is now fully funded for ongoing exploration and feasibility studies with $28 million in cash.

Venture has now completed over 40,000 metres of diamond core drilling at Mt Lindsay over the past three years, including 13,000 metres in the past six months alone.

Mt Lindsay also has the major advantage in that the deposit contains significant co-products including 38,000 tonnes of tungsten (WO3), which would substantially increase revenues from any future production.

Following completion of the infill drill program, which focussed on the high grade tin and tungsten zones within the Main and No.2 Skarns, the company has seen a strong conversion of the resource base from the inferred to indicated category.

In addition Venture delivered exploration success from both the Stanley River South and Reward Prospects which saw additional metal added to the overall Mt Lindsay resource base.
Article highlight
That Mt Lindsay is now one of the world's largest undeveloped tin projects is impressive, however the size of co-products will significantly boost future production revenues. A 28% increase in resource base from less than 10% of targets is a portent of the potential project scale and revenue potential at Mt Lindsay.