Bryah Resources Ltd (ASX:BYH) is leveraged to the nickel and copper component of the resource estimate for the Gabanintha Vanadium Project in central Western Australia.
The inferred estimate of 12.5 million tonnes at 659ppm nickel and 222ppm copper was reported on Thursday by Australian Vanadium Ltd (ASX:AVL).
Bryah holds the rights to all minerals except vanadium, uranium, cobalt, chromium, titanium, lithium, tantalum, manganese and iron ore with these held by AVL.
READ: Australian Vanadium updates vanadium JORC estimate to include cobalt, nickel and copper
The maiden base metal sulphide resource is considered by AVL to be potentially economically recoverable following metallurgical test work.
Tests demonstrate that the base metal sulphide mineralisation consistently reports to the non-magnetic fraction during the separation of the vanadium-bearing magnetite.
READ: Bryah Resources leveraged to base metal recovery tests from AVL’s vanadium project
This has effectively delivered a sulphide by-product for further concentration by flotation.
Estimation of nickel and copper content, along with cobalt, follows bench-scale test work and generation of sulphide flotation concentrates containing 3.8%–6.3% base metals.
This included 1.36%–2.58% nickel, 0.82%–1.70% copper and 1.54% – 2.02% cobalt,
AVL is undertaking a preliminary feasibility study on development of the Gabanintha vanadium deposit.
Two exploration projects
Bryah is a copper-gold-manganese focused explorer with two projects in Western Australia - the 718 square kilometre Bryah Basin project and the 202 square kilometre Gabanintha project.
Gabanintha is about 40 kilometres south of the town of Meekatharra.
The Bryah Basin is host to the high-grade copper-gold mines at DeGrussa, discovered by Sandfire Resources NL in 2009, and Horseshoe Lights, which was mined up until 1994.
Active and historical mines close to the Gabanintha tenements include the Gabanintha, Burnakura and Bluebird gold mines.
Open pit mining by Dominion Mining at Gabanintha between 1987 and 1991 is reported to have produced around 150,000 ounces of gold from six pits mined to a maximum depth of about 65 metres.