Pallas Green Project, Ireland (23.6% owned)
Minco’s 23.6% joint venture with Xstrata Zinc covers exploration licences, totaling 294 square kilometres located on the southern boundary of the Irish Midland orefield between Limerick and Tipperary. Drilling to date has resulted in the discovery of a significant cluster of zinc-lead massive sulphide lenses at Castlegarde, Shrane West, Caherconlish and Tobermalug. With the exception of Castlegarde, the zinc-lead bearing massive sulphide deposits in the vicinity of Caherconlish are considered to be part of a single cluster of deposits comparable to th emineralised clusters currently supporting the Lisheen and Galmoy mining operations, approximately 50 kilometres to th enortheast.
Ireland is an established regional zinc producer supplying around half of Europe’s mine production. The Pallas Green property has blossomed into a very exciting exploration project and, with 13 drilling rigs now operating and additional rigs to be added, is believed to be the biggest exploration drilling programme ever undertaken in the 50-year modern history of the Irish mining industry.
The
Pallas Green block of prospecting licences contains a west northwest trending
alteration zone, the Pallas Green alteration trend, approximately 25 kilometres
in length and 2 kilometres in width. This is considered analogous to the
Lisheen alteration trend (approximately 20 kilometres in length and 2 kilometres
in width) which hosts the Lisheen and Galmoy Mines, which are located respectively
55 and 60 kilometres northeast of the Pallas Green area.
Including past production, the combined resource base of Lisheen and Galmoy amounts to 32 million tonnes averaging 12% zinc and 2% lead – grades which are comparable to those now being encountered at Pallas Green. Drilling over the past year has focused on the Tobermalug prospect where potential for a deposit of about 10 million tonnes (of about 10% zinc and 1.5% lead) has been indicated (not to JORC compliance). These results reinforce Minco’s belief that an economic deposit could be discovered within the Pallas Green licence area.
Drilling to date has only partly explored some 30% of the total licence area and expectations of further discoveries remain high. Future work objectives are twofold; delineation of reportable resources through infill drilling at the main discovery sites; and identification of additional sulphide lenses through “step out” drilling.
At Caherconlish South, a lens of high grade massive sulphide has been outlined by 100 metre spaced drill holes , with an indicated width of between 200 and 250 metres. The ‘high grade’ massive sulphide ‘core’ could remain open to the north and south. At Srahane West, which lies 3.7 kilometres northwest of Caherconlish South, a northwest-southeast trending lens, measuring approximately 350 metre by 150metre, of high grade mineralisation has been partially outlined by five holes.
Mineralisation at the Tobermalug prospect is located north of Caherconlish South at a depth of around 300 to 350 metres below surface. Mineralisation remains open towards the projected location of the east-northeast trending, Ballyneety fault, believed to be located ±800 metres to the south.
During 2007, about 16,000 metres of drilling was completed with a total expenditure of €1.7 million . For 2008, the budget has be expanded to €6.0 million, of which Minco's share is approximately €1.4 million, and the planned drilling increased to 50,000 metres.