Elementos Ltd (ASX:ELT) (OTCMKTS:ELTLF) (FRA:9EM) has been as much as 45% higher to A$0.017 today after results from another two holes at the flagship Oropesa Tin Project in Spain confirmed zones of tin mineralisation up to 31.1 metres thick with assays of up to 12.9% tin.
The company began a 5,000-metre program of diamond drilling across 48 holes at Oropesa in October 2020 as part of a wider optimisation program designed to increase the project’s overall resource, annual production rate and mine life.
Twenty-five of the planned 48 drill holes have been completed with assays received for 19 of the completed holes.
Holes 019 and 013 have reported the following results:
- 31.1 metres at 1.49% tin from 113.3 metres, including 6.1 metres at 4.85% from 133.6 metres, which includes 1-metre at 12.9% from 133.6 metres and 1.4 metres at 8.02% from 135.8 metres; and
- 10.4 metres at 0.37% tin from 65.1 metres.
Results continue to provide confidence that the drilling program will meet its objectives and this comes as tin prices continue to maintain gains, currently in excess of US$29,700/tonne.
Converting resources to indicated
Chairman Andy Greig said recent drilling served to support the company’s primary objective to convert existing inferred resources into indicated resources.
He said: “The latest drilling results from Oropesa represent some of the highest tin grades ever reported at the project and continue to support our great confidence in the asset.”
Elementos’ drilling program follows the release of the company’s Oropesa economic study in May 2020, which positioned the project as a low-cost, globally significant new tin development with a prospective annual production of 2,440 tonnes of tin-in-concentrate over a 14-year mine life.
The economic study was completed with a tin price of US$19,750 per tonne and the LME spot tin price is currently well in excess of that.
Three objectives
The program’s three principal objectives are:
- To convert existing inferred resources into indicated resources to improve the overall waste-to-ore stripping ratio;
- Confirmation of near-surface, possibly fault-controlled mineralisation that is currently excluded from the 2017 geological resource model; and
- Testing for additional near-surface resources from exploration targets identified from Induced Polarisation (IP) geophysical survey anomalies.