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[Ferro-Alloys.com]Vital Metals (ASX:VML) is focused the Watershed Tungsten Project in North Queensland, which remains a development-ready project that is fully permitted and has all landowner and Indigenous agreements in place.
Results from testwork have shown that Vital will be able to further simplify the Watershed flowsheet, resulting in important improvements to the project.
We are joined exclusively by Vital Metals' managing director, Mark Strizek, in Proactive Q&A Sessions™.
PROACTIVE INVESTORS: Welcome Mark.
Watershed has high grade scheelite mineralization at surface. Can you tell us what is so important about this?
Mark Strizek:
In a nut shell it makes the project more attractive to financiers as it means there is cash flow early in the project’s life.
The DFS mine plan has been designed to deliver high grade material to the plant.
This near surface mineralisation has been tested by Vital using grade control spaced drilling at three areas on a 10mN by 10mE spacing with 1m sampling downhole.
The northern zone reported robust intercepts with up to 7 metres at 1.59% WO3 from a 29 metre downhole.
The flowsheet that has been developed for Watershed DFS has been able to demonstrate a relatively high recovery of tungsten for a relatively low cost. How does it do this?
Mark Strizek:
We take advantage of the high density contrast between scheelite mineralisation and the background waste.
We are able to reject around 80% of the barren material from the ore feed at an early stage using proven X-ray ore sorters and spirals saving a considerable amount of energy (cost).
Securing offtake contracts will be a key part of cementing a finance package for Watershed. What makes the Watershed scheelite concentrate attractive for end users?
Mark Strizek:
It will be a premium, high grade scheelite concentrate product that is very clean. Penalty elements such as molybdenum, arsenic, uranium and thorium are non-existent or at trace levels.
It will be a product of choice for end users and will be able to be shipped anywhere in the world. Frankly it will save a lot of the problems they currently have with low spec concentrates.
Watershed has a large prospective tenement package with good potential for additional tungsten mineralisation to be identified. Can you tell us some more about that and also some of the other mineralisation that is found around Watershed?
Mark Strizek:
Watershed is open along strike and at depth.
There are some nice surface targets at Watershed that we are keen to put some holes into which have potential to be converted into resources for low cost open pit mining.
We consider Watershed Deeps to have the greatest potential as an underground target post open pit mining. MWD 119 reported 20 metres at 1.27% WO3 from 302 metres.
The mineralisation plunges to the south and is still open at depth.
The area is truly world class and aside from tungsten we also have some interesting copper and gold prospects.
The gold prospect looks interesting, having a 1.5 kilometre long gold geochemical anomaly.
Shallow rotary air blast and reverse circulation drilling has delivered some interesting intersections including: 4 metres at 14.55 g/t gold in Hole P019; and 15 metres at 2.7 g/t gold in CRC 35.
As JOGMEC has a ban on gold exploration we have not looked at the gold aside from looking at scheelite mineralisation and taking some grabs from spoil dumps.
Finally, why should an investor consider adding Vital Metals to their portfolio?
Mark Strizek:
Vital holds 100% of the Watershed scheelite project which has a DFS completed with all mining leases and approvals in place.
Watershed's competitiveness on a global scale continues to be enhanced via the lower Australian dollar and lower input costs in mining contracting and construction costs.
We believe the market may have lost sight of the inherent intrinsic underlying value in the project and it is reflected in our view that Vital is currently trading at a discount to its peers when measured by recent transactions, EV/Resource and EV/Reserve metrics.
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- [Editor:Sophie]
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