Venturex’s project moves into development frame IT HAS been a...

Venturex’s project moves into development frame
IT HAS been a long time in the making, but Venturex Resources now looks to be closing-in fast on the development of the sizeable Sulphur Springs zinc and copper project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

• Michael Quinn
• 16 Feb 2017
• Copper ZincVenturex ResourcesWestern Australia
  The latest indicator is completion of a “value engineering study,” revealing a development costing an initial $A166 million and yielding an annual average of 32,000 tonnes of zinc and 12,000t of copper and total cashflow (pre-tax) of $601 million over the 12-year mine life. Payback could happen in a little over 18 months, while a pre-tax NPV of $338 million and a 52% IRR has been estimated.
  The latest project enhancement is the plan to process supergene mineralisation through the floatation plant rather than potentially going down the heap leach and SX-EW route. There has evidently been strong indications this is viable and Venturex aims to confirm the strategy in the months ahead by drilling out the inferred supergene resource and continuing to carry out further testwork.
  Venturex managing director John Nitschke told MNN the supergene flotation processing plan was the fourth key breakthrough made in the past year or two by the recently changed company management which had significantly enhanced the project’s development bona fides.
  The other three are: initially developing the project as an open cut, discovering the supergene mineralisation while developing the resource model for the open cut and recognising the opportunity to bulk mine the underground mineralisation.
  Nitschke and his Venturex management now believe Sulphur Springs is a “highly robust base metals project”.
  Investors reacted well to the latest development, marking the stock up more than 42% intra-day.
  In late trade the stock was up 43% to 1c, capitalising Venturex at $26.1 million.
  And Venturex bulls would probably be thinking the future could continue to get brighter given (the admittedly more) advanced Heron Resources – whose Woodlawn project has plenty of broad economic similarities to Sulphur Spring – is capitalised at $54 million.