King Snake Prospect 1.5km From Flagship Ban Phuc Deposit
Blackstone Minerals Limited’s (ASX:BSX) in-house geophysics crew has generated a new high priority target at the King Snake prospect in Vietnam.
Managing Director, Scott Williamson, said King Snake is located 1.5km north-east of the processing facility and the company’s flagship Ban Phuc DSS deposit where the company has delivered the King Cobra discovery and recently announced the maiden Indicated Mineral Resource of 44.3Mt @ 0.52% Ni for 229kt Ni and Inferred Mineral Resource of 14.3Mt @ 0.35% Ni for 50kt Ni.
“Blackstone’s in-house geophysics team has generated our best target to date at King Snake,” Mr Williamson said.
“Based on geological similarities and historical results, we believe it has the potential to deliver similar results to the Ban Phuc MSV but with significant PGE credits.
“We continue to target high grade ore for our staged capex strategy to utilise the existing 450ktpa concentrator in the early years of the mine life.”
Blackstone’s in-house geophysics crew recently generated a 1.2km long massive sulphide target at Ban Chang within a 12km long district-scale exploration corridor which it will continue to drill test over the coming months.
Blackstone is targeting MSV prospects analogous to the previously mined Ban Phuc MSV, where previous owners successfully mined 975kt from an average vein width of 1.3m and average grades of 2.4% Ni & 1.0% Cu.
At King Snake MSV and high-grade brecciated Ni-Cu-Co-PGE (Pt+Pd+Au) sulphides/ gossan are associated with tremolite-altered mafic-ultramafic rocks.
Approximately 50 rock chip samples were assayed by previous owners from surface exposures. A total of 23 diamond drill holes for 5,187 metres have been drilled by previous owners.
Most of this work was carried out by Falconbridge, with additional drilling by AMR in 2005 (5 holes for 729.1m) and again in 2007 (two holes for 170.8m). Based on the existing drilling, the known body of mineralisation at King Snake is estimated to be 600m long, 0.2 to 3.0m thick averaging 0.62m wide and 1.79% Ni, 0.7% Cu and 1.14 g/t PGE.
King Snake remains open at depth and to the west. Blackstone will complete ground-based EM at King Snake over the coming months to identify zones of potentially broader mineralisation associated with the King Snake MSV.
