Variscan has been given the green light to start surface drilling at the Buenahora licence area within its Novales-Udias zinc project in Spain.

The surface drilling permit granted by the Government of Cantabria’s Department of Mines allows the company to drill up to 50 holes to test regional targets.

Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR) expects surface drilling to begin in the next two months, running concurrently with the underground drilling program that is already underway at the San Jose Mine.

“Securing the Government of Cantabria’s approval for our maiden surface diamond drilling campaign on the Novales-Udias Project represents another very important milestone in Variscan’s efforts to explore and ultimately develop its Spanish zinc assets,” managing director Stewart Dickson said.

“It allows us to start testing zinc mineralisation along strike and at depth over the 9km Novales Trend and 3km sub-parallel mineral trend over the Novales-Udias Project area.”

“The approval comes as favourable demand and supply dynamics have delivered extremely strong zinc prices.

“Preparatory work for the surface drill program is underway, opening the way for drilling to commence in approximately two months.”

Surface drilling

The Udias area has multiple, highly prospective, yet untested, drill targets including Magdalena, Sinforosa, Motilos and Pepita.

These are situated on strong geochemical anomalies and along trend to former mine small-scale workings or high-grade historical drilling intersections

Variscan has already defined 21 exploration target zones across the Udias area where soil sampling conducted in the third quarter of 2020 had returned a peak result of 16.33% zinc while 30% of the samples assayed more than 1% zinc.

Historical surface drilling had recorded high-grade zinc intersections in the vicinity of the surface drilling targets. Notable targets include 2.75m at 19.5% zinc and 1.52m at 30.89% zinc.

A geophysical survey of surface drill targets will begin soon to improve the company’s understanding of the drill targets, identify new targets, generate additional prospectivity and increase the project’s scale, and add additional data to assist with developing an integrated view of the exploration and development potential of the project.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Variscan Mines, 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.