- Drilling has commenced at ScandiVanadium’s Skåne Vanadium project in southern Sweden
- Drilling will be undertaken at the Hörby Licence and is expected to take three weeks to complete
- The project has the potential to be developed into a large, long life vanadium operation
ScandiVanadium has commenced drilling at its Skåne Vanadium project in southern Sweden.
Drilling is taking place at the Hörby Licence at the north of the Skåne project area and is expected to take three weeks to complete.
Skåne is located on the southern-most tip of Sweden and consists of 11 granted licences totalling approximately 220 square kilometres.
The project shows the potential to develop a large, long life vanadium operation with an exploration target between 610-1200 million tonnes at 0.5-0.8 per cent vanadium pentoxide in a sediment-hosted deposit.
Detailed geological maps of the Skåne area have been completed by the Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning (SGU) and are based on extensive data such as air-borne surveys, historical drilling, and mapping.
Sediment-hosted deposits offer potentially favourable metallurgy — a differentiator to establish both a low capital expenditure and low operating expenses. It can also offer a clean processing route to provide a high purity vanadium pentoxide product.
The presence of unusually high concentrations of vanadium in the Dictyonema Formation was first identified in 1940 when mining and production of vanadium pentoxide was conducted during World War II.
Vanadium was concentrated by biological action in the Early Ordovician Dictyonema Formation, the topmost part of the Alum Shale.
This resulted in a much higher grade of vanadium while other elements such as molybdenum, iron uranium and sulphur are much lower.
The Hörby Target is situated at the northern end of the Skåne Project area and has been defined by geological mapping, geophysics and historic drilling.
Diamond holes of up to 125 metres deep will target the prospective Vanadium bearing Dictyonema Seam which occurs near surface at Hörby.
ScandiVanadium shares are up 11.1 per cent, trading for 1 cent apiece in a $3.166 million market cap.