www.bassmetals.com.au
Bass Metals (ASX: BSM) is a growth focused and profitable Australian base and precious metal producer with a portfolio of high quality zinc, lead, copper and gold assets in the rich Mount Read Volcanic mineral belt in northwest Tasmania. Listing in 2005, Bass delivered its maiden profit in 2008 from its profitable base metals production hub at Que River in Tasmania, which has generated $25 million in cash flow over the last two years.
The Company also has an active and successful exploration programme and is currently following up on recent discoveries at Switchback and Fossey East which are high-grade and located in close proximity to existing mines and milling infrastructure. Bass has an experienced Board and operating team who have a strong track record of delivering profitable production underpinned by exploration success and are highly motivated to improve on that record.
The Company’s growth strategy centres on the development of a ‘pipeline’ of production, near-production and exploration assets in this prolific mineral belt, with strong leverage to a substantial new discovery through its extensive regional ground holding.
Bass Metal's drilling at Fossey East reveals potential for new discoveries
Bass Metals (ASX: BSM) has recommenced in fill drilling at the Fossey East deposit and has intersected high grade mineralisation including 5.6 metres at 14.7% zinc 5.4% lead, 2.1 g/t gold, 109 g/t silver and 0.7% copper.
The results indicate the mineralisation is occurring much deeper in the sequence than previously thought, which is located immediately adjacent to the existing Fossey mine infrastructure and has potential to host additional mineralisation.
Managing director of Bass Metals, Mike Rosenstreich told Proactive Investors, "it is good to be back drilling at Fossey East, it could be our next source of ore as well as the start of a string of discoveries along this trend. Looking at the bigger picture Fossey east occurs in a geological position not previously considered prospective so that opens up large areas of ground, near the mill which have not been tested.”
In fill drilling to 25 metres spaced centres through the current Fossey East resource will continue before extensional drilling commences to fast track mine development.
In February the company established an initial resource estimate within just five months of the Fossey East discovery.
Today's results were from diamond drill hole FUD0066, drilled from underground and targeted the top of the Fossey East barite and base metal zone, within the outline of the geological resource reported previously.
The entire 22.15 metre interval of barite and base metal mineralisation assayed 4.7% zinc, 1.8% lead, 1.0 g/t gold, 45 g/t silver and 0.2% copper.
Kim Denwer, Bass’ exploration manager, said “Bass’ geologists have observed that the mineralisation is occurring much deeper in the sequence than previously thought prospective, which highlights new untested opportunities for the discovery of additional Fossey or Fossey East scale zones of mineralisation in a “pinch and swell” pattern along the Hellyer-Fossey trend.”
Bass recently resumed drilling from underground of the Fossey East prospect in Tasmania following a break as a result of mining operations limiting access to the planned drilling positions.
Bass is exploring for large scale, high grade polymetallic (copper-lead-zinc-silver-gold) volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits in a highly mineralised VMS terrain, the Mt Read Volcanic belt, located in north west Tasmania. The aim of the program is to fast track mine development.
The current drilling program is designed to infill to 25 metres spaced centres through the current Fossey East resource outline to fast track mine planning and potential development and then test for extensions.
A total of 7 drill holes have been completed to date (FUD0066 – FUD0072), but assays remain pending for the last 6 holes.
The company is seeking a better understanding of the geometry before commencing the extensional Fossey East drilling.
Geological observations of those drill holes where assays are still pending appear consistent with the earlier drill results on which the initial resource estimate was based in terms of widths of alteration and base metal mineralisation intersected.
Interestingly, the most recent drill hole completed intersected 3.4 metres with conspicuous chalcopyrite mineralisation, visually estimated +2% Cu, within the base metal zone.
To date about 120,000 tonnes of ore has been mined representing 11% of the Fossey Mine Plan and therefore only still a small sample of the overall resource.
On June 20 Bass Metals announced it is on target to achieve the forecast 44,000 tonnes of ore production for June at the Fossey Underground Mine, with a total of 35,000 tonnes of ore mined since the start of June.
