Hardey Resources Ltd (ASX:HDY) has received confirmation that its Nelly Vanadium Mine in Argentina is prospective for high-grade vanadium and it will now expedite high-level exploration.
A geological study was undertaken by SRK Consulting, together with Condor Prospecting, to review all necessary historic information and undertake a site visit.
The results confirmed historic miners only extracted a small portion of the mineralised central vein and SRK used ground truthing to identify four other unmined quartz-rich veins over a 1.5-kilometre trend.
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Hardey executive chairman Terence Clee said: “Confirmation from SRK Consulting there is potentially four untapped, mineralised veins at Nelly Vanadium Mine and 10 historic stockpiles, reflects the project’s significant potential upside.
“The board has accepted all SRK Consulting’s recommendations to expedite a high-level exploration program, with re-opening the mine as soon as possible the core priority.”
Main open pit at Nelly Vanadium Mine
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Historic channel sampling and assay results across Nelly’s historical workings have produced grades from the partially mined vein that range up to 1.9% vanadium pentoxide with a length weighted average of 0.82%.
SRK’s ground truthing indicated the unmined veins are up to 5.5 metres wide and from 12 metres to potentially 40 metres deep.
The review also confirmed ore continuity, defining a mineralised strike length of at least 1.5 kilometres, with the central vein continuously surface-mapped for 1.1 kilometres.
Unique mineralised system
The type of deposit at Nelly differs from the four main types found globally, which includes vanadiferous titanomagnetite and sandstone-hosted vanadium systems that are prevalent in Australia.
Nelly’s mineralisation can be defined as hydrothermal vanadium and base metal veins where the upper zone is enriched by oxidation during weathering.
This post-mineralisation enrichment resulted in widespread oxidised minerals such as malachite, azurite and wulfenite, along with some primary sulphides such as pyrite and galena.
The main vanadium minerals recognised to date at Nelly are vanadinite and descloizite.
Vanadates within open pit
Source of early cashflow
Teams from SRK and Condor undertook a comprehensive three-day site visit to Nelly as part of the review, surveying the old workings, outcrops with possible vanadium mineralisation, historic ore stockpiles and infrastructure facilities.
It was noted that 10 stockpiles existed around multiple small surface workings and the historical processing plant.
A future priority will be to bulk sample the stockpiled ore and determine the volume, as this may represent an early-stage source of cashflow.
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SRK recommended a high-level exploration program to determine the extent of mineralisation with the channel system.
Its recommendations include: induced polarisation geophysics; geological, topographical and structural mapping; ore sampling and chemistry; mineralogy; and a conceptual model compiling all collected information.
If the results from a conceptual geological model demonstrate ore grade and ore body continuity, Hardey will prepare an inaugural drilling campaign and move towards reopening the mine.