Drilling at King Snake target hits massive nickel sulphides for Blackstone Minerals
Blackstone Minerals plans to release a resource for King Snake later this year.
Infill drilling at Blackstone Minerals’ (ASX: BSX) King Snake prospect in northern Vietnam has has intersected 8.5 metres of massive sulphide vein (MSV), semi-massive sulphide vein (SMSV) and net textured sulphide (NTS) mineralisation.
The prospect is one of three advanced MSV opportunities that Blackstone is progressing within the company’s Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGE (platinum group elements) project and is located 1.5 kilometres northeast of the existing Ban Phuc processing facility.
Drilling has been focused on electromagnetic (EM) targets which extend down plunge to the west of historic exploration and assays have indicated greater thickness of mineralisation.
Blackstone said higher power surface EM targeting has guided the down plunge drilling hundreds of metres from historic surface showings.
In addition, downhole EM (DHEM) has further directed investigations to wider and higher-grade zones through the MSV.
Drilling results
Best results from infill drilling at King Snake were 1.18m at 1.73% nickel, 1.09% copper, 0.06% cobalt and 1.07g/t PGE from 190.62m; 4.90m at 1.09% nickel, 0.97% copper, 0.04% cobalt and 0.89g/t PGE from 133m, including 1.88m at 2.66% nickel, 1.92% copper, 0.1% cobalt and 2.13g/t PGE from 134.68m.
Also reported were assays of 1.30m at 0.94% nickel, 0.96% copper, 0.04% cobalt and 1.29g/t PGE from 167m, including 0.5m at 2.39% nickel, 2% copper, 0.09% cobalt and 3.29g/t PGE from 167m; 13.5m at 0.3% nickel, 0.24% copper, 0.01% cobalt and 0.37g/t PGE from 197.95m, including 0.55m at 2.87% nickel, 1.05% copper, 0.1% cobalt and 2.4g/t PGE from 209.45m; and 1.16m at 1.06% nickel, 2.21% copper, 0.04% cobalt and 3.7g/t PGE from 42.34m.
Valuable target
Managing director Scott Williamson said King Snake was proving to be a potentially valuable target within Ta Khoa.
“Our initial geophysical assessment has been confirmed with mineralisation extending over a strike length close to one kilometre, while continuing to plunge deeper to the west,” he said.
“Importantly, the results to date provide a solid foundation for us to commence mine planning and incorporate the King Snake target into the pre-feasibility study for our upstream business unit.”