High grades of indium have been discovered at Orient. Pic via Getty Images.
Mining
Special Report: Explorer Iltani Resources has been awarded $299,000 to drill its Orient silver-indium discovery through Round 8 of the QLD Resources Industry Development Plan’s Collaborative Exploration Initiative (CEI).
The QLD Department of Resources is backing Iltani Resources (ASX:ILT), which recently reported Australia’s highest-ever known indium grades of up to 1,070g/t.
CEI grants are designed to directly support innovative exploration and are aimed at discovering new critical minerals projects in QLD.
Indium is a critical mineral used in coatings for tech items such as TVs, semiconductors and various other electronic and reactive applications.
Exploration carried out to date at Orient has defined an extensive ‘vein’-like system extending >4km2 that has high prospectivity for base metals and indium.
Iltani says the CEI funds will be spread across a planned ~750m diamond drill hole to test a silver-lead-zinc-indium anomaly beneath the Orient West target area and a follow-up downhole EM survey.
The drill hole will seek to confirm the potential for a porphyry system at depth, and combined with the DHEM survey, will enable Iltani to better understand the architecture of the Orient system, in particular the source of mineralising fluids and potential larger accumulations of mineralisation (copper and/or tin) associated with the porphyry at depth.
Iltani expects to commence the deep diamond hole following completion of its Stage 2 RC drilling program at Orient, which is scheduled to commence towards the end of April 2024.
“The hole will target a deep geophysical anomaly located below the Orient West silver-lead-zinc-indium mineralisation,” Iltani MD Donald Garner says.
“This mineralisation has an epithermal texture and is associated with a broad area of hydrothermal alteration (phyllic, argillic and propylitic) which envelops the mineralised structures and as such is believed to be the upper levels of an epithermal-porphyry system.
“The deep geophysical anomaly is potentially representative of the intrusion (porphyry) which is believed to be present at depth under the Orient system and the likely fluid source for the epithermal silver-lead-zinc-indium mineralisation.
“We will continue to drill the shallower epithermal mineralisation at Orient, with plans to get the drill rig back at the end of April to complete the remaining Stage 2 RC drill holes.
“Once this round of drilling has been completed, we will then mobilise the diamond rig to Orient West to test the deeper porphyry target.
“The diamond hole will be the deepest hole drilled to date at Orient and is incredibly exciting as we will start to see what sits down at depth.”
This article was developed in collaboration with Iltani Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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