Blackstone Minerals makes King Snake highest priority target in Vietnam after hitting massive sulphides
King Snake could potentially be incorporated into the Ta Khoa nickel project’s mining and processing studies.
Massive sulphide vein mineralisation has been observed in all holes drilled by Blackstone Minerals (ASX: BSX) at its King Snake prospect, part of the explorer’s Ta Khoa nickel sulphide project in Vietnam.
“The company is aggressively drilling at King Snake and sees significant potential for it to be incorporated into ongoing mining and processing studies given the exploration success to date,” Blackstone stated in its latest announcement.
“King Snake has become the company’s highest priority target.”
With King Snake now the highest priority target, multiple rigs are onsite and will continue testing the extent of mineralisation.
Blackstone is planning to reveal a maiden resource at King Snake in 2021, with the prospect potentially incorporated into ongoing mining and processing studies as sufficient data becomes available.
King Snake is 1.5km northeast of the decommissioned processing plant at Ta Khoa, which had been built to Australian standards.
Blackstone is working numerous sulphide veins at Ta Khoa and plans to develop a number of small mines (with a two to three-year mine life) to target these narrow veins.
All five latest holes hit mineralisation
At King Snake, MSV and high-grade brecciated nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group elements, and gold sulphides and gossans are associated with tremolite-altered mafic-ultramafic rocks.
Blackstone noted that all five additional holes at King Snake had intersected MSV mineralisation, with one hitting 19.55m of continuous mineralisation.
New intersections, together with historic drill results, have defined a strike length of 800m.
The company’s drilling at this prospect is now focusing on new electro-magnetic (EM) geophysics targets which extend down plunge to the west of historic drilling.
“Initial visual results suggest greater thickness of sulphide mineralisation down plunge of that historic drilling,” the company added.
King Snake prospect’s geology is similar to that at Ban Phuc at Ta Khoa, where the previous operator mined 975,000 tonnes of high-grade ore at average grades of 2.4% nickel and 1% copper between 2013 and 2016, to produce 20,700t of nickel, 10,100t of copper and 670t of cobalt.
The Ta Khoa nickel–copper-PGE project in Vietnam, is a district-scale green nickel sulphide opportunity.
Blackstone is focused on building an integrated upstream and downstream processing business in Vietnam that produces precursor nickel-cobalt-manganese products for Asia’s growing Lithium-ion battery industry.