ValOre drills return high-grade PGE assays in Brazil
ValOre Metals Corp. [VO-TSXV, KVLQF-OTC, KEQ-Frankfurt] has released multiple high grade platinum group element assay results from drilling at the company’s 100%-owned Pedra Branca project in northeastern Brazil.
The company said the latest results from the follow-up Trado auger program at the Ipueiras target confirm the presence of in-situ, high-grade, at-surface palladium-platinum mineralization at the undrilled Southwest Zone. “Follow-up trenching has commenced to further delineate the PGE-bearing intrusion prior to core or RC drilling,” said Colin Smith, ValOre’s Vice-president, Exploration.
Drilling highlights include 8.0 metres of grade 2.05 g/t palladium plus platinum and gold (2PGE+Au) from 1.0 metre, including 3.0 metres of grade 4.70 g/t 2PGE+Au from 6.0 metres in Trado auger TR22IP58.
ValOre shares eased 1.7% or $0.05 to 28.5 cents, and now trade in a 52-week range of 63 cents and 22 cents.
ValOre is a Vancouver-based company with a portfolio of exploration projects in Canada and Brazil.
The portfolio includes the platinum group elements property in Pedra Branca, which was acquired to bolster ValOre’s existing Angilak uranium, Genesis/Hatchet uranium and Baffin gold projects in Canada.
Angilak hosts the Lac 50 Trend, with a NI-43-101 inferred resource of 2.8 million tonnes of grade 0.69% U308 or 43.3 million pounds of U308.
ValOre has invested over $55 million on resource delineation, exploration drilling, metallurgy, geophysics, geochemistry and logistics across the Angilak land package.
The Pedra Branca project covers 52 exploration licenses over an area of 56,852 hectares. The project hosts seven distinct PGE+Au deposit areas, hosting a 2022 NI 43-101-compliant inferred resource of 2.2 million ounces of 2PGE+Au contained in 63.6 million tonnes of grade 1.08 g/t 2PGE+Au.
The currently known Pedra Branca inferred PGE resources are potentially open-pittable, the company has said.
The Trado is a portable machine-powered auger drill specifically designed for mineral exploration. The device is capable of drilling up to 30 metres depth through soil and saprolite rock, and most holes terminate at the onset of competent bedrock. Overburden is typically shallow at Pedra Branca (less than 5.0 metres), and thus ValOre’s average Trado hole depth is approximately 3.0 metres, with a maximum depth of 10 metres to date.
The company has said recent results validate the use of Trado auger drilling to identify shallow PGE mineralization at Pedra Branca, and the use of this exploration technique will be implemented property-wide to advance targets to the drill-ready stage.
A total of 67 Trader auger holes have been drilled in 2022 at the Northeast and Southwest Zones of Ipueiras, totalling 212 metres augered, including 129.5 metres of target Ums and PGE mineralization in 37 of 67 holes.
Valore’s exploration program at Ipueiras commenced with detailed geological mapping and prospecting throughout the 2.0-kilometre anomalous trend, followed up with a first phase of Trado auger drilling (105 metres), with reported PGE mineralization in 11 of 35 holes.