Happy days as Venturex jumps 27pc on 'spectacular' copper hit

Investors applauded Venturex Resources today after the explorer reported a high-grade copper hit at its Sulphur Springs project in the Pilbara.

The drilling results were “truly spectacular and help to validate the strong economic potential of the Sulphur Springs development opportunity”, Venturex executive director Anthony Reilly told investors.

Only ten days ago Venturex jumped from 1.4c to 1.9c after noting its Whim Creek Pilbara tenement was right next door to a conglomerate-hosted gold discovery at De Grey’s Loudens Patch prospect.

The shares had since dwindled to 1.3c — until today’s announcement.

Following drilling at Sulphur Springs, Venturex reported an intercept of 38.2 metres at 3.49 per cent copper from 97.8 metres down-hole including a high-grade interval of 14m at 5.98 per cent copper from 111 metres.

The stock (ASX:VXR) soared 27 per cent to an intraday high of 1.9c before cooling slightly to 1.8c in Monday afternoon trade.

Two further holes have been drilled, each intersecting significant widths of semi-massive to massive sulphides and visible copper sulphide minerals.

“We look forward to the ongoing results as the drill program continues to evaluate the near-surface mineralisation up-dip from the known mineralisation at depth,” said Venturex executive director Anthony Reilly.

The project has a resource base of 740,000 tonnes and 230,000 tonnes of contained zinc and copper respectively and an ore reserve of 255,000t and 84,000t of contained zinc and copper respectively.

Meanwhile Venturex has a field team on site at the Whim Creek project to begin evaluating a potential extension of conglomerate-hosted gold from De Grey’s Loudens Patch discovery.

An initial program of soil sampling returned gold values of up to 100 parts per billion and copper results of up to 382 parts per million.

Venturex has a market cap of about $61 million.