Proactive Investors - Ferro-Alloy Resources Ltd (LON:FARF) said it has completed drilling on ore body one and partially completed drilling on ore bodies two, three and four at the large Balasausqandiq vanadium deposit in Southern Kazakhstan.
The London-listed vanadium producer and developer said assaying for ore body one (OB1) is expected to be completed by the end of this month and it anticipates announcing an updated resource estimate for OB1 in the first quarter of 2023.
Ore reserves required to support Phase 1 of the project will be derived from the revised resource estimates as part of a bankable feasibility study (BFS).
Ferro-Alloy Resources previously announced a resource and a reserve estimate for OB1 of 23 million tonnes, sufficient for a mine-life of more than 20 years for Phase 1 of the project through processing 1 million tonnes of ore per year.
“The early results of the expanded bankable feasibility study are expected to confirm the potential for Balasausqandiq to become a globally significant vanadium operation, and I look forward to updating our shareholders on the results of the exploration and metallurgical programmes in the New Year," the Ferro-Alloy chief executive Nick Bridgen said in a statement.
The drilling programme for ore bodies two, three and four, which will support Phase 2 of the project with an additional 3 million tonnes of ore processed per year, has been completed so far as possible, the company said.
“There is an area of difficult topography (not expected to create difficulties for actual mining) and the company is currently assessing the options available to access the undrilled area or omit it from the BFS if sufficient tonnes of resource and reserve are assessed from the remaining area,” the company noted..
Vanadium is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys. Two pounds of vanadium added to a tonne of steel almost doubles its strength.