Surefire Resources NL (ASX:SRN) has completed a 62-hole, 5,189-metre infill drilling program at the Victory Bore Vanadium Project in Western Australia, aiming to upgrade the resource category of the project’s mineral resource estimate with 100-metre spaced drill sections.
Some 67% of assays from the infill program have been received, revealing more broad true-width intersections of vanadium, up to 70 metres at 0.43% vanadium pentoxide.
The company has so far delineated three parallel lodes at Victory Bore’s main prospect:
- Main Lode - up to 56 metres true width, grading up to 0.48% vanadium;
- Central Lode - up to 38 metres width, grading up to 0.42% vanadium; and
- West Lode - up to 60 metres, grading up to 0.23% vanadium.
Combined, the three lodes hold a true width of up to 154 metres, indicating the potential for a bulk mining project.
Vanadium prices on the rise
“Vanadium prices are predicted to increase in line with an increase in storage requirements with the uptake of electric vehicles to support the global push for decarbonisation,” Surefire Resources managing director Vladimir Nikolaenko said.
“The drilling results from Victory Bore continue to display huge true widths and exceptional continuity, both along strike and down dip.
“This represents an ideal bulk mining proposition. Based on these drilling results, Victory Bore is shaping up to be a world-class vanadium deposit and certainly one of the largest in Australia.”
At this point, SRN has completed exploration drilling on 1.4 kilometres of an 8-kilometre magnetic anomaly, offering plenty of future exploration upside.
That exploration potential is further upgraded by the presence of an untested banded iron formation (BIF) lode some 100 metres to the west of West Lode, modelled through magnetics interpretation by Surefire.