Surefire Resources has fully acquired the large Victory Bore project located near Sandstone in WA’s Mid-West region and now holds over 25km of strike on rock sequences prospective for vanadium-enriched, titanomagnetite mineralisation over two contiguous exploration licences.
The company completed its purchase of the Victory Bore project from fellow, ASX-listed High Grade Metals in a cash and scrip deal worth $1.25m to the latter company.
Importantly, Surefire now has its hands around an inferred mineral resource of 237.2 million tonnes grading 0.43% vanadium pentoxide, which incorporates the Unaly Hill deposit and the larger Victory Bore deposit within the Atley Igneous geological complex.
Considerable blue-sky exploration upside for additional vanadiferous magnetite mineralisation exists in the region, based on the continuity of an aeromagnetic geophysical signature and the underexplored nature of the district.
Advanced metallurgical studies have been undertaken for both the Unaly Hill and Victory Bore deposits, which confirmed that good quality vanadium products can be produced from the ore streams.
In November last year, Surefire revealed in preliminary metallurgical test work that a high-grade magnetic concentrate of up to 1.46% vanadium pentoxide could be generated from simple crushing and magnetic separation of the Unaly Hill ores.
The test work also rejected most of the waste silica, alumina and calcium content whilst upgrading the iron and valuable titania content of the same composite ore samples from that project.
This raises the likelihood of supplementary revenue from the generation of titanium and iron by-products in any future mining and ore processing in the combined project area too.
Surefire is continuing to advance the Unaly Hill project towards a scoping study level evaluation of its economic viability.
The grades returned from Unaly Hill and Victory Bore are similar to Atlantic Vanadium’s nearby Windimurra vanadium mine, which contains a remnant mineral resource of 235 million tonnes grading 0.49% vanadium pentoxide and is presently on care and maintenance, but being primed for a restart.
Surefire intends to evaluate the economic potential of ferrovanadium and vanadium pentoxide as a final, finished product stream from any future operation.
Vanadium pentoxide flake is currently fetching just over USD$26,000 per tonne, whilst the high-value ferrovanadium product is attracting a price close to USD$48.50 per kilogram for the high-quality 80% vanadium, or “FeV80” product.
With this week’s acquisition of Victory Bore, the company has now simplified its regional strategy for moving the combined vanadium projects forward and with the greater economy of scale, it has significantly increased the chance of success in the Sandstone district.
