Avalon Minerals increases D Zone Resource by 30Mt

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Avalon Minerals (ASX: AVI) has announced a Mineral Resource estimate upgrade at the D Zone prospect, located on the company’s Viscaria project in northern Sweden.

 

Project location. Source: Company announcement

 

The company explained the resource upgrade follows a recently-completed 2012-2013 northern hemisphere winter extensional drill program where 43 drill holes were completed at the D Zone prospect.

Avalon has reported the D Zone Mineral Resource in terms of both iron and copper Mineral Resources separately to meet the guidelines of the JORC code.

Incorporating drilling information from the 2012-2013 winter extensional drill program as well as historical data deemed suitable for estimation, Avalon has reported the new Mineral Resources for the D Zone prospect as:

13.6 million tonnes at 1 per cent copper above a 0.4 per cent copper cut-off grade, and is classified as being 5.1 million tonnes at 1.07 per cent copper Indicated and 8.5 million tonnes at 0.96 per cent copper Inferred; and

25.6 million tonnes at 26.4 per cent iron at a cut-off above a 15 per cent iron Mass Recovery grade, and is classified as 11.7 million tonnes at 27.5 per cent iron Indicated and 13.9 million tonnes at 25.7 per cent iron Inferred.

“One of our major objectives for the extensional drilling at D Zone was to add 45,000 tonnes of copper to the Mineral Resource, so it is extremely pleasing to be able to announce that we have added 88,000 tonnes of copper, an increase of 183 per cent,” Avalon Minerals managing director Jeremy Read said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The copper Mineral Resource has increased by 152 per cent to 13.6 million tonnes at one per cent copper, which is further bolstered by the fact that the copper grade has also increased by 11 per cent.

“When the copper and iron Mineral Resources are combined, the overall Mineral Resource at D Zone has almost doubled from 15.5 million tonnes to 30 million tonnes.

“Importantly, at a 0.8 per cent copper cut-off, the copper Mineral Resource has grown from 2 to 7.6 million tonnes at 1.4 per cent copper, an increase of 280 per cent, which has strengthened the possibility of mining sections of D Zone via underground methods.

“This increase in high-grade copper resource indicates our drill program was very successful in preferentially adding higher grade tonnes of copper mineralisation.

“The indication that the D Zone copper-iron mineralisation has the potential to be mined underground and is still open at depth and along strike to the southwest, should further strengthen the project’s economics.”