- Victory Mines (VIC) is celebrating today after completing its Malamute project drilling program on time and within budget
- The testing has uncovered exceptional high-grade aluminium oxide assays across the Malamute project
- Air-core drilling also intercepted significant scandium and cobalt mineralisation
- Most importantly, the high-grade and consistent assays have materially exceeded the best drilling results from Victory’s competitor, the Alpha Collerina project
- The high-grade aluminium oxide can be made into high purity alumina, an important material in creating scratch-resistant glass for smartphones
- Shares in Victory have stayed steady at 0.2 cents each today at 1.22 pm AEDT. The explorer is currently trading in a market cap just under A$3 million
Victory Mines is celebrating today after completing its Malamute project drilling program on time and within budget.
Assay results from the air-core drilling tests have already been processed and returned from Victory’s laboratory, with the exploration program already delivering significant positive results.
The testing has uncovered exceptional high-grade aluminium oxide assays across the Malamute project. Results in hole MA08 indicate levels of up to 28.2 per cent Al2O3, equivalent to a 14.9 per cent aluminium grade.
Drilling hole MA09 has delivered aluminium grades ranging from 9.4 per cent at 9 metres and 12.3 per cent at 14 metres.
Most importantly, the high-grade and consistent assays have materially exceeded the best drilling results from Victory’s competitor, the Alpha Collerina project.
While the inaugural drilling program has been concluded, Victory has confirmed many of the drill holes remain underexplored. In spite of this, the company predicts the project’s prospectivity has been well established.
The new discovery delivers significant upside at the Malamute project, where the aluminium oxide can be transformed into HPA (high purity alumina).
HPA can be utilised in the sapphire glass market, where it forms an important part in creating scratch and breakage-resistant glass for mobile phone producers.
In addition to HPA, Victory authorised prospecting for cobalt and other Rare Earth Elements (REE). Drill hole MA07 was most prospective, with shallow-depth drilling delivering scandium mineralisation of 380 parts per million (ppm) from 32 metres, 213 ppm from 30 metres, and cobalt mineralisation of 935 ppm from 36 metres.
According to Victory, the HPA, scandium and cobalt results significantly enhance the prospectivity of the Malamute project. As a result, the company board will start reviewing the best strategy to create an “inaugural inferred resource.”
Non-executive director Alec Pismiris said the assay results significantly exceeded the Victory board’s expectations.
“Clearly, the extent of high-grade aluminium oxide found in samples materially resets the exploration potential for the project overall,” Alec explained.
“The Board’s next task is to formulate the optimal exploration plan for the Malamute Project in order to prove up an inferred resource,” he concluded.
The spring drilling program was completed by Victory’s exploration consultants, Xplore Resources, and covered 40 air-core holes across an area of 2088 metres. The total drilling depth for each hole ranged from two to 88 metres.
As a result of this exploration milestone, Victory will move to convert its existing performance shares into ordinary ones.
Shares in Victory have stayed steady at 0.2 cents each today at 1.22 pm AEDT. The explorer is currently trading in a market cap just under A$3 million.