Exploration prospects look exciting
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Thursday January 31 2008
While there are three zinc mines in operation around the country there are also two significant discoveries which should make the jump from prospect to working mine.
Minco, together with its partner has been drilling in and around the townland of Pallas Green in Co Limerick for several years now in a bid to prove up the economic viability of an extensive lead-zinc orebody.
Earlier this month it confirmed an agreement with joint venture partner, Xstrata Zinc, to fund a €6m exploration budget on the Limerick prospect for the current year.
The proposed programme will involve drilling about 50,000 metres of core and will use up to 15 drill rigs at a time, a huge workrate by any standards. Work to date has yielded what the company described as a preliminary estimate of resource potential for the Tobermalug prospect of 6.5m tonnes, averaging 8.6pc zinc and 1.23pc lead.
However, significant in-fill drilling is required to prove these resources. Pallas Green contains a number of lenses and the final resource figure could be far higher.
The old exploration adage tells us the best place to find a new mine is beside an old one. A variation on this was put to good effect by Connemara Mining last year when it reported the discovery of commercial grade zinc lead mineralisation at a drill hole at its Monaster operation approximately 10km from Limerick City and close to the Pallas Green prospect.
The discovery was made on only the fourth drill hole from a five hole scouting programme operated by its joint venture partner Teck Cominco Ireland, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Teck Cominco Ltd.
John Teeling, chairman of Connemara Mining described the find as "really exceptional news" for Connemara and for the wider Irish zinc industry. "It is very rare in exploration to ever drill a commercial grade discovery hole. This hole is exceptional by world zinc and Irish zinc discovery standards," he said.
