Spanish Drill Campaign Backing Up Economic Study
Elementos Limited (ASX: ELT) has intersected visible mineralisation in four of the initial six diamond drill holes completed to‐date in the 2020 exploration drilling programme at its flagship Oropesa Tin Project in Spain.
Exploration drilling at Oropesa started in early October as part of a wider optimisation programme designed to increase the project’s overall resource, annual production rate and mine life.
This drilling programme follows the release of the company’s Oropesa Economic Study in May, 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 (*4).
Approximately 5,000m of drilling in 42 drill holes has been planned to expand and optimise Oropesa’s JORC Mineral Resource.
The new drilling programme has three principal objectives:
- 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 that is 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 programme of work under a contract that has been signed with Elementos’ Spanish subsidiary Minas De Estano de Espana (MESPA).
No samples of the drill core have been collected to‐date for assay. Sampling of the drill core will be carried out by experienced personnel as a series of campaigns.
Exploration drill hole Expn_011 is the first of a number of drill holes designed to confirm near surface, possibly fault controlled mineralisation that has been recognised in earlier reports but is excluded from the 2017 geological resource model.
Significant development of oxidised sulphide and mineralising textures have been recognised in the core of Expn_011 in three separate zones down hole. The zones of mineralisation within Expn_011 are from 9 ‐ 24m, 55 ‐ 70m and 74 ‐ 87.6m.
Exploration drill hole P53 was sighted approximately 600m to the northwest of the Oropesa geological resource on a significant IP geophysical anomaly to test for extensions to the known resource. Drill hole P53 intersected fresh semi‐massive sulphide mineralisation from a down hole depth of 188.9 to 190.2m. The mineralisation is contained within a steeply dipping structure that coincides with the IP anomaly within a quartzite. No replacement mineralisation within sandstones that typifies the mineralisation at Oropesa was intersected in this drill hole.
