Venture sets drill rods in motion in Tasmanian nickel hunt

Venture Minerals is lining up its drill rig on a compelling three-kilometre-long electromagnetic conductor at the company’s flagship Mount Lindsay project in northwest Tasmania, only 25km from Mallee Resources’ Avebury nickel mine.

Outlined by a strong nickel-in-soil anomaly overlying the prospective Wilson River ultramafic complex, Venture believes the conductor could outline a massive nickel sulphide deposit buried below the surface.

The company is set to plunge a diamond drill hole into the target designed as a first-pass test to seek the source of the conductor.

It’s not the first recent sign of nickel exploration in the area.

After lying dormant for the past 13 years, Mallee Resources recently accelerated a restart of mining operations at its Avebury nickel mine, which has a current mineral resource of 29.3 million tonnes grading at 0.9 per cent nickel for 264,000 tonnes of contained nickel.

Venture’s own new nickel target lies on the eastern edge of its 150 square kilometre tenure that also houses the Mount Lindsay tin-tungsten deposit, regarded as one of the world's largest undeveloped tin prospects. According to recent estimates, the project boasts around 81,000 tonnes of contained tin and a tungsten resource of approximately 3.2 million metric tonne units of tungsten trioxide.

The company has also been busy scrubbing up its Tasmanian tin-tungsten play in light of surging tin prices.

Spurred on by demand from the electric vehicle market and emerging technologies, tin hit an all-time high in March last year tipping the scales at nearly US$44,000 per tonne. However, the price of the metal then slid to a low last November’s of US$19,391 per tonne but has since climbed by nearly 50 per cent to close at US$28,154 per tonne giving it a lofty view over historical averages.

Drilling last year at its Mount Lindsay project rattled off a clutch of exemplary results including a monster 119.2 metre intersection grading 0.8 per cent tin and 0.2 per cent tungsten from 75.8m.

The 119.2 m hit housed a higher-grade 23.2m section at 1.6 per cent tin with 0.03 per cent tungsten, or 1.7 per cent tin equivalent from 75.8m.

Venture says its latest probe is aimed at confirming the continuity of high-grade zones at the project and consolidating its metallurgical samples in preparation for a revised feasibility assessment for an underground mine.

Mount Lindsay has been earmarked as a “critical minerals project” by the Australian Government given its advanced tin-tungsten enrichment.

Chipping in on the critical metal list, the company recently revealed it had etched out a duo of intriguing rare earth anomalies – Cruncher and Reward – at its multi-commodity Mount Lindsay Project.

Venture’s first breakthrough rare earths discovery at the Reward deposit followed a re-assaying program of shallow drill samples within a clay zone at the operation.

A subsequent drill campaign yielded a suite of notable intercepts including 16.4 metres at 1028 parts per million total rare earth oxides, or “TREO” from 31.9m and 7.5m at 1287ppm TREO from a depth of just 2m.

Located roughly 1.3km east of Reward, the Cruncher rare earths target is highlighted by a 1200m long soil anomaly, laden with spurious praseodymium and neodymium. Boosted by a $50,000 state government grant, Venture set the rods in motion over the target late last year in a maiden reconnaissance program. Those results remain outstanding.

With an enviable list of critical metals at its flagship Mount Lindsay project in the metal-rich province of Tasmania, pundits will no doubt be following Venture's ongoing work to see if nickel will be added to its basket.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au