Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Lode Resources (ASX:LDR), Managing Director Keith Mayes
Lel Smits: Lode Resources is drilling its wholly owned Montezuma Silver and Antimony project on Tasmania’s west coast, where a maiden resource of 8.2 million ounces of silver equivalent remains open at depth. Recent drilling has hit a new high-grade load carrying tin and copper and extended the main deposit with more assays pending. Ahead of presenting at the Rockstars Mining Investor event, I’m joined by Lode Resources Managing Director Keith Mays to discuss the new discoveries, nearby infrastructure and what comes next at Montezuma.
Keith, welcome to The Stock Network.
Keith Mayes: Thanks for having me.
Lel Smits: Now, Montezuma sits near the Granville-Brownfield site, which has grid power processing equipment, also water and tailings facilities.
Keith, can you outline how could that help load on the path toward development?
Keith Mayes: Well, I think it’s a great advantage actually having an established processing facility there, although it will need to be upgraded and modified to suit processing the Montezuma ore. But, you know, it’s important in terms of the capital outlay required to build in a facility from scratch, but it’s also important in terms of the kinds of timelines, permitting timelines, that are required to get a project up and running. So I think it’s a significant advantage to us to do that.
We also have additional infrastructure that we would establish closer to the mine itself. So that would be initial crushing, screening and sorting, so ore sorting infrastructure that would be very close to the mine. And we’ve also got an opportunity here, the very near surface and at surface part of our Montezuma deposit is very high grade, in such a case, such high grade that it’s potentially amenable to DSO, direct shipping ore.
So that ore would only need to be crushed, screened and sorted. And we would sort it into low grade and high grade. The low grade we’d stockpiled, we’d treat it later.
And the high grade we’d containerize and send to market. So that’s a potentially an opportunity for us to generate early cash flows before and during the time we’re establishing the other infrastructure at the Granville facility.
Lel Smits: Wonderful. And Keith, recent drilling did hit a new tin copper load and also extended the Montezuma load south. What will the next holes test and when do you expect to update that resource?
Keith Mayes: The current drilling program, historically the drilling we’ve done is from the western side of the deposit, so from the foot wall. And part of the reason for that is because the terrain on the eastern side of the deposit is quite steep.
But recently we’ve been able to establish a drilling platform on that eastern side in the hanging wall. And that allows us to test the stratigraphy between in sort of 100 metres of the hanging wall itself to test for parallel loads to the Montezuma load. Plus also extend that hole through to what we call the Maestri’s conglomerate, which is a unit that we’ve recently discovered is prospective for silver zinc lead mineralization as well.
So we can test all of those things with one hole drilling from that hanging wall position. So yeah, the very first hole we discovered what we’re now calling the Moore’s load. It’s relatively narrow, about a metre, 1.1 metre wide, but very high grade ore, mineralization, high grade tin, copper, antimony, very high grade silver, hundreds of grams per tonne silver.
So yeah, that’s been a pleasant surprise for us. And we have done a number of other holes from that same drill pad, drilling from that hanging wall position, mostly to extend the resource to the south. But at the same time, you know, getting a few holes into those other two prospective horizons, which we hope at some point in the future will become part of our resource as well.
And then we have one hole, which we’re currently drilling at the northern end of the deposit to further extensions to the north. So we’ll have finished the last of the planned drilling by the end of next week. And then that will be the cut off for the resource update, which we’re looking to bring out before the end of this year.
Lel Smits: Fantastic. Look, I appreciate the update from Lode Resources, Keith, and look forward to hearing you on stage when you appear at the Rockstars Mining Investor event in Sydney.
Keith Mayes: Looking forward to it. Thanks.
Ends