Australian Vanadium Raises Gabanintha Indicated Resource by 70 Percent

Australian Vanadium (ASX:AVL) has updated the resource at its Gabanintha vanadium project in Western Australia, with the indicated resource rising to 40.7 million tonnes (Mt) at 0.66 vanadium pentoxide (V2O5). That’s a 70-percent increase from the company’s previous resource update.

The new resource comes after the company conducted a drill campaign consisting of 19 reverse-circulation holes at 1,863 meters, and three diamond holes at 368.2 meters; assay results from six of the reverse-circulation holes are still pending.

The revised resource now comes in at 183.6 Mt at 0.76 percent V2O5, which includes the measured, indicated and inferred categories. The resource also includes a massive magnetite high-grade zone of 96.7 Mt at 1 percent V2O5; this area saw its mineral resource increase by 3.1 Mt overall, with its indicated resource growing by 7.2 Mt, or 147 percent.

Adding to the updated mineral resource is an inferred base metals mineral resource of 14.3 Mt, which contains an estimated 208 parts per million (ppm) cobalt, 666 ppm nickel, 217 ppm copper and 0.16 percent sulfur, showing a 1.8-Mt increase.

The company feels there is significant potential for further targeted drilling programs to convert additional inferred resources to the measured and indicated categories along Gabanintha’s 11.5-kilometer strike length.

Australian Vanadium intends to incorporate the revised resource estimate into its prefeasibility study (PFS) for Gabanintha, which it plans to release in December 2018.

“The value of the recent drilling of just 19 drillholes along strike and the consequent low-cost addition of indicated category vanadium resources, key base metal values and important geo-metallurgical parameters to the resource model, added significantly to the quality of the mine plan that will emerge from the PFS,” Australian Vanadium Managing Director Vincent Algar said in a statement.

“The increased understanding and confidence further strengthens Gabanintha’s position as a world-class vanadium project in its size, grade and metallurgical recovery parameters,” he added.

Along with the upcoming PFS, Australian Vanadium is currently conducting activities to push Gabanintha closer to feasibility, including metallurgical testwork, a detailed mining study and the preparation of V2O5 powder for battery and vanadium carbo-nitride customer evaluation.

The company’s share price had grown 6.06 percent by the end of trading on the ASX on Wednesday (November 28), ending the day at AU$0.035.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Olivia Da Silva, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.