Ta Khoa Expansion Plans Continue To Grow
Blackstone Minerals Limited (ASX:BSX) has intersected massive sulfide in three maiden drill holes at Ban Chang, part of its Ta Khoa Nickel-Cu-PGE project in Vietnam.
Managing Director Scott Williamson said the holes were drilled more than 1km apart and along strike within a 1.2km-long massive sulfide target zone defined by high priority EM plates. Blackstone’s maiden drillhole BC20-01 intersected the following significant results:
- BC20-01 5.2m @ 0.66% Ni, 0.73% Cu, 0.04% Co & 0.79g/t PGE from 58.0m 1.5m @ 2.20% Ni, 2.12% Cu, 0.13% Co & 2.66g/t PGE from 58.5m incl. 1.05m @ 2.98% Ni, 1.22% Cu, 0/18% Co & 3.43g/t PGEfrom 58.5m
- BC20-02 intersected 1.2m MSV from 87.0m more than 200m along strike of BC20-01 and BC20-03 intersected a 9.15m wide zone of sulfide vein mineralisation more than 1km from BC20-01.
The drilling is part of an ongoing campaign to target regional MSV as Blackstone aims to build its resource inventory at Ta Khoa to supplement the Ban Phuc maiden resource on track for completion in Q3, 2020. Blackstone’s second drill rig will continue to follow the in-house geophysics team throughout the Ta Khoa nickel sulfide district, testing high priority EM targets generated from 25 MSV prospects including King Snake, Ban Khoa, Ban Chang, and Ban Khang.
“Our first assays from Ban Chang confirm a high grade magmatic nickel sulfide vein with significant by-products including copper, cobalt, platinum and palladium,” Mr Williamson said.
“When the by-products are included, the overall grades of the massive sulfides from Ban Chang are substantially higher than those successfully mined from the Ban Phuc massive sulfide mine during lower nickel prices.
“Ban Chang is one of the key prospects we are testing and it has potential to add high grade feed to a bulk open pit mining scenario at Ban Phuc.
“We look forward to further results from Ban Chang as we continue to drill test the 1.2km-long massive sulfide EM targets over the coming weeks.”
Blackstone’s Ta Khoa Nickel–Cu-PGE project has a combination of large DSS nickel targets and 25 other prospects, including multiple high-grade MSV targets of the style that were mined at Ban Phuc from an average vein width of 1.3m.
The Ban Phuc Nickel mine operated for 3.5 years between 2013 and 2016, producing 20.7kt Ni, 10.1kt Cu and 0.67kt Co, before closing when the defined mineable reserves were depleted.
The high-grade Ban Phuc MSV is less than 50m to the south of the Ban Phuc DSS deposit and remains underexplored at depths below the base of previous mining. Many other MSV targets are within potential trucking distance of the existing 450ktpa Ban Phuc processing facility that was built to international standards and has been on care and maintenance since 2016.
