Surefire Resources NL (ASX:SRN) has identified up to 70m @0.43% vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) in the second tranche of assay results received from the recently completed RC drilling campaign at the Victory Bore Project in Western Australia.
That campaign of 62 holes for 5,189m was designed to in-fill existing drill sections. It has succeeded in clearly defining three wide, continuous, and consistent Vanadium lodes.
Main Lode and Central Lode were delineated by previous drilling on 400m sections. This programme infilled a 1.4km portion of the resource to 100m spaced sections. The aim was to upgrade the resource category.
Significant new lode material was encountered that will potentially increase that resource. Drill holes targeted a south-south-westerly trending newly interpreted Banded Iron Formation (BIF) dipping 72 degrees west within a coarse crystalline gabbro.
The Main Lode is situated on the eastern side and is thick, predictable both along strike and down dip with wide consistent downhole intersection thicknesses rarely less than 50m, and up to 92m.
The vanadium pentoxide grades range from 0.41% to 0.48% V2O5.
The Central Lode is situated approximately 70m to the west of Main Lode and features mineralized thicknesses varying from 24m to 64m in downhole intersections.
While drilling was focussed on the Main and Central lodes, additional vanadium mineralization was defined and called West Lode.
While the West Lode remains open to the west, it has already been shown to average 60m true width of vanadium mineralisation @0.23% V2O5.
“Vanadium prices are predicted to increase in line with an increase in storage requirements with the uptake of electric vehicles to support the global push for decarbonisation,” Managing Director, Vladimir Nikolaenko, said
“The drilling results from Victory Bore continue to display huge true widths and exceptional continuity, both along strike and down dip. This represents an ideal bulk mining proposition. Based on these drilling results, Victory Bore is shaping up to be a world class vanadium deposit and certainly one of the largest in Australia.
“With this drilling it is becoming apparent that the Victory Bore vanadium deposit is not only fast becoming one of Australia’s largest vanadium deposits, but the thickness and continuity of the mineralization means it can sustain a large, long-life bulk mining operation at low stripping ratio, mining dilution and mining operation costs.”
Next steps
The remaining 13 drill holes or 589 sample assays are due. Once verified and QA/QC checked, the new, updated drilling database will be submitted for re-estimation of the Mineral Resource to conform with the JORC resource criteria.
The company continues to compile data for the completion of a prefeasibility study on the back of a positive Scoping Study assessment of the project.
An application for conversion of the Exploration Licence to a Mining Lease was submitted to the West Australian Department of Mining Industry Resources and Safety (DMIRS) in 2022.
For further information please visit: https://www.surefireresources.com.au/
