Blackstone closes in on more Vietnam nickel

After a round of infill drilling Blackstone Minerals has confirmed high grades of up to 4.3 per cent nickel, 4.73 per cent copper and 18.2 grams per tonne platinum group elements, or “PGE” at the company’s Ta Khoa nickel project in Vietnam. The assays come from the company’s recently completed campaign of resource definition drilling at the project’s King Snake massive sulphide vein deposit.

The results have confirmed the continuity and extent of the deposit’s high-grade massive sulphide core and also demonstrated the presence of an associated ultramafic dyke with disseminated nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation. Drilling highlights at King Snake include a 0.7m interval going 1.11 per cent nickel, 4.73 per cent copper, 0.05 per cent cobalt and 18.2 g/t PGE from 192m within a 6.2m intersection going 0.73 per cent nickel, 0.89 per cent copper, 0.02 per cent cobalt and 3.32 g/t PGE from 191.8m.

Another hole delivered 1.95m going 3.96 per cent nickel, 1.23 per cent copper, 0.15 per cent cobalt and 1.99 g/t PGE from 73m within a broader 9.35m running 0.93 per cent nickel, 0.46 copper, 0.04 per cent cobalt and 0.62 g/t PGE from 65.6m.

Whilst remaining open down plunge, King Snake boasts a mineral resource of 430,000 tonnes at 1.3 per cent nickel or 2.4 per cent nickel equivalent for 5500 tonnes of nickel contained. The deposit is situated about 1km north of the company’s flagship Ban Phuc nickel deposit containing 485,000 tonnes of nickel where the company is planning to source the majority of the ore for its proposed refinery project.

Together its nickel project and the proposed refinery form Blackstone’s flagship vision of building an integrated upstream and downstream battery metals processing business in Vietnam to produce precursor products for Asia’s fast-growing lithium-ion battery industry.

The resource definition drilling at King Snake confirms continuity of a high-grade Ni-Cu-CoPGE vein and associated ultramafic dyke system closely comparable to the Ban Phuc MSV that was successfully mined in the 2013 to 2016 period and is furthermore located only 1.2km from the operational Ban Phuc concentrator.

Assays have also been received for the first of three initial exploration drill holes at the project’s Suoi Phang target about 10km north-west of King Snake. The assays from the single hole show strong amounts of nickel and copper with a 3m hit going 2.42 per cent nickel, 0.52 per cent copper, 0.06 per cent cobalt and 0.05 g/t PGE from a shallow 37m.

Nickel-based companies such as Blackstone have likely been eagerly watching the metal markets this month after the price of nickel hit a six-month high of around US$30,000 per tonne last week. The last time nickel’s price was in similar territory was in May as the metal’s price was on a decline from spectacular highs of above US$100,000 reached amid an unprecedented short squeeze in March.

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