Galena Mining has described results from ongoing resource development drilling at its flagship Abra lead-silver project as “better than expected”.
The company has set about converting lower confidence inferred mineral resources to indicated status at the deposit which is north of Meekatharra in W.A.
Highlights from the recent campaign include 28.3 metres grading 8.9% lead and 52 grams per tonne silver from 346.9 metres down-hole, including 8.1m @ 11.2% lead from 395.8m deep.
According to management, the mineralised intersection is thicker than had been expected in this area and is close to true width and still open to the northwest.
The resource drilling program is primarily targeting the stratiform “apron zone” at the Abra deposit, which is the most laterally continuous mineralisation and will be the focus of early stage underground development, as highlighted in June’s scoping study results.
Other impressive intersections included 29.6m @ 9.5% lead and 19g/t silver from 478.3m deep, 10.9m @ 24% lead and 33g/t silver from 513.1m deep and 8.7m @ 11.2% lead from 572.7m deep in the same drill hole, at the southern end of the deposit.
A further hole through the targeted zone intersected 4m @ 13.2% lead and 34g/t silver from 327.8m down-hole.
Below the “apron zone”, the company also returned 6.4m @ 13% lead and 17g/t silver from 439.7m down-hole, in a hydrothermal vein system.
Galena CEO Ed Turner said: “These results add further confidence to our resource model and the thicknesses and grades are better than expected in several locations in particular the north west sector which includes mineralisation that is closest to surface and therefore likely to be mined in the first few years of production.”
“Every hole completed in 2018 has, like in the 2017 drilling, intersected high grade mineralisation and will therefore greatly assist with the ore block optimisation that is part of the PFS. We look forward to releasing further results from this drilling program in the coming weeks and the results of a PFS. This study will be completed in September 2018.”
The 8,400 metre resource development drilling campaign is in support of the company’s ongoing PFS.
Two rigs are currently drilling at Abra, and assays are currently pending for 6 further holes.
Abra is a world-class deposit, wholly owned by Galena, with a recent scoping study outlining the outstanding economics of developing the project.
In March this year, the company declared the global mineral resource estimate for Abra at 36.6 million tonnes grading 7.3% lead and 18g/t silver using a 5% lead cut-off grade.
A high-grade subset of 11.2 million tonnes @ 10.1% lead and 28g/t silver was produced using a higher-grade cut-off of 7.5% lead.
The grade and size of Abra, ranks it as one of the largest undeveloped lead-silver projects in the world.
Galena plans to complete a feasibility study for the Abra project during 2019.
