Mineral & Financial outlines work programme at Lagoa Salgada

Mineral & Financial Investments announced the 2020 exploration plans for Ascendant Resources at the Lagoa Salgada VMS project on Thursday, which is owned by M&FI's 75% subsidiary Redcorp Empreendimentos Mineiros.

The AIM-traded firm said the programme was planned on the back of the “robust” preliminary economic assessment results, released on 14 January.

It said the exploration program included downhole induced polarity (IP) and, subject to funding, drilling aimed at expanding and upgrading the central and south zones, and the copper-rich resource.

Additional drilling of the southern extension of the high-grade massive sulphide mineralisation of the north zone was also planned, to expand the indicated mineral resources, which was also subject to funding.

The programme would include four metallurgical drill holes for further metallurgical testing.

M&FI said the work to be completed by Ascendant and Redcorp would be funded and guided by Ascendant, as part of its previously-announced earn-in agreement with M&FI.

The main objective of the proposed programme was to increase and upgrade tonnage at the copper-rich south zone, while increasing and upgrading tonnage and grade in the north zone.

Ascendant Resources intended to use the positive results from the exploration programme to form the basis for an updated mineral resource estimate in the latter half of the year, which Redcorp would use to start a feasibility study by the end of the year.

M&FI also said Ascendant and Redcorp were engaged with the drilling company, and subject to funding, the drilling was set to start as soon as the labour restrictions due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic were lifted.

Ascendant was currently talking to financial partners to source the funding for the programme, and was reportedly hopeful that the drill programme could be funded by alternative non-dilutive measures for its shareholders.

“Given the success and knowledge gained from the 2019 exploration campaign, which increased the measured and indicated resource to over 10.3 million tonnes and added 10.3 million tonnes of Inferred resources, we have a great degree of confidence in Ascendant Resources' ability to substantially expand and upgrade the mineral resources in 2020,” said chairman Jacques Vaillancourt.

“We are especially interested in the south and central zones, where Ascendant hope to greatly improve CuEq tonnage and grade, as drilling in these zones has been very limited to date.

“Data suggests that these zones have the potential to be larger than the north zone, and may also be connected at depth in one large deposit.”

Vaillancourt said that, although Lagoa Salgada was in the early stages of exploration, it had the hallmarks of being a comparable project to its large neighbors on the “world class” mineral belt.

“With the expectation to replicate the exploration success achieved in previous programmes, Redcorp and Ascendant Resources plan to complete an updated mineral resource estimate in the latter half of the year and commence a feasibility study by the end of the year following up on the robust results of the preliminary economic assessment that was announced on 14 January.”

At 1610 BST, shares in Mineral & Financial Investments were flat at 7.5p.