VOSTOK COPPER PROJECT
Company Facts
Mineral Securities ownership interest: 15% ownership
Project Facts
- Oxide copper project at evaluation stage
- Country of operation – Kazakhstan
More Information
Minsec holds 100% equity in the Vostok copper project tin southern Kazakhstan through a wholly owned subsidiary. The project covers an area of 111 square kilometres, which contains the Vostok 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 prospects, located within an area of six kilometres. Previous estimates, based on Soviet-era data, suggest that these deposits may contain two million tones of copper to 500 metres depth.
Exploration History
The Vostok copper deposits were identified by regional exploration at the end of the Soviet era (1989-1991) and, as a result, there was only limited work conducted to define resources. That work resulted in the definition of an initial resource at the Vostok 1 deposit of 130 million tonnes grading 0.65% Cu. This resource estimate is under the Russian C2 classification and is not a JORC-compliant estimate.
The mineralisation is hosted in highly altered Palaeozoic rocks and comprises chalcocite and pyrite at Vostok 1 and atacamite-bronnchannite, copper clays, copper carbonates, and chalcocite at Vostok 3. Chalcopyrite-bearing mineralisation is present at depth in both of these prospects, but MRK has focussed its attention to the potentially leachable chalcocite and copper-oxide zones. The Vostok 1 and Vostok 3 prospects are located 3.5 kilometres apart.
Each prospect also has a grid (approximately 80 metres x 160 metres) of basement penetrating (2-6 metres) drill holes that defines the outlines of the mineralisation beneath the soft sedimentary cover rocks.
The upper half of this mineralisation at Vostok 1 and the chalcocite and oxide copper mineralisation at Vostok 3 is considered likely to be mineable, either by conventional open pit means and treatable by leaching and SXEW, or by in-situ leaching.
Both the recorded ore mineralogy and some very limited column leach test work completed by Kazakhstani specialists (on core from Vostok 1) indicate that the resources at both deposits are likely to be amenable to processing by conventional acid leach (oxide ores) and acid-ferric sulphate leach (chalcocite ores) technologies to produce London Metals Exchange grade copper on site.
Significant exploration potential exists in exploration prospects at Vostok 4 (for copper), Vostok 2 (for copper and gold) and Vostok 5 (for copper and gold) on the basis of the results of Soviet era diamond drilling at each of these prospects.
For more information on Vostok Copper Project please phone +61 (0) 8 9221 7466.
