During the course of 2023, Argent Minerals conducted a deep drilling program in the main resource area at Kempfield, which found the lead and zinc grades increase with depth
\nARD believes the story at Kempfield is only just getting started with seven key geochemical anomalies spanning between 400m up to 1.7km in strike yet to be drill tested
\nThe explorer plans to dispatching a technical team on the ground in \u201924 to start following up on some of the high-grade historic surface copper, silver, lead and zinc mineralisation <\/p>\n
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Argent Minerals\u2019 (ASX:ARD)<\/a> Kempfield deposit belongs to a peer group of VMS deposits known as the Eastern Australian Palaeozoic deposits which includes well-known, rich assets like Rosebery, Que River, Hellyer and Thalanga.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Collectively, these projects have been a major source of base metals in Australia for more than 100 years but ARD managing director Pedro Kastellorizos believes the story at Kempfield is far from over.<\/p>\n Location of the Kempfield project. Pic via Argent Minerals<\/p>\n The company has identified a growing number of lead, zinc, silver and gold trends that position Kempfield \u2013 within the richly mineralised Lachlan Orogen that\u00a0extends from northern Queensland, NSW and through Victoria into Tasmania \u2013 as a potential major provider which has been enhanced further by an upgrade to resources at the project by 28% to 39.9Mt.<\/p>\n RC rig at Kempfield. Pic via Argent Minerals<\/p>\n Most of the resource \u2013 22.5Mt at 109g\/t silver equivalent \u2013 is contained within the higher confidence indicated category, which has sufficient data for preliminary mine planning.<\/p>\n Stockhead<\/em> sat down with Argent Minerals managing director Pedro Kastellorizos to talk about the emerging silver project and what\u2019s in store for 2024.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cArgent Minerals has owned the Kempfield project since inception of the company in 2008,\u201d Kastellorizos says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a whole lot of work done to it previously, yet the story hasn\u2019t been told by a long shot and that is the main reason why I came on as managing director \u2013 because I\u2019ve worked on this style of mineralisation in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat immediately stood out to me was the fact that this is an advanced project with a very large resource area \u2013 most companies when they come across this sort of mineralisation don\u2019t realise that these systems are quite large.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a matter of systematically exploring key areas but being very specific in what you are actually targeting because obviously exploration is a very expensive process.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can identify some key indicators, then that will accelerate the project very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, the resource area has only been defined down to 100 vertical metres and that was based on just chasing the silver,\u201d Kastellorizos says.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the course of 2023, we decided to put some further deeper drill holes into the actual main resource area and what we found was that the lead and zinc grades increase with depth, which was previously unknown to us.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also found out that the deeper we drill, the zinc substantially increases in grade and there\u2019s at least two ounces of silver associated with that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lead and the zinc are giving us extra credits in the initial resource area, and at the same time, adding a lot more value and tonnage which makes it more economic moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile our resource is quite large, it\u2019s still pretty much undiscovered,\u201d Kastellorizos says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt requires more work, but people have known about the Kempfield deposit for the last 15 years and over that time, it\u2019s fallen off the radar.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, when we compare our resource in terms of its upside, we believe we have one of the largest deposits in NSW straight off the bat, if not in Australia at this stage it\u2019s just about the actual marketing of it.<\/p>\n \u201cPlus, when you look at our share price versus our market cap per ounce, we are undervalued between six and 10 times, when compared to the other silver players on the ASX.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere are only two projects that we can compare to \u2013 one is the Paris project which Investigator Resources has and also Silver Mines with their Bowdens deposit,\u201d Kastellorizos says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we look at our results compared to those two particular resources, our initial shallow silver is very high grade so in terms of its economic potential, our mineralisation starts from one to two metres below the surface, as opposed to some of those other deposits, which are a lot deeper.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of mining, strip ratios and economics, Kempfield is definitely one of those projects that could be in production quite easily and quite readily.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSilver\u2019s always been traded on the back of gold, it is classified as a precious metal, but silver is starting to become a major focus in the green energy sector given its use in solar panels that are coming out of China at the moment,\u201d Kastellorizos says.<\/p>\n \u201cManufacturers are starting to remove copper out of those cells and replacing it with silver and the reason they are doing that is because copper will start degrading after five or six years within the actual solar panel and once the copper goes, that material becomes redundant.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s new technology now that is like a silver paint or paste, which they put on top of the actual panel and by doing that they\u2019re getting a lot more longevity out of that cell.<\/p>\n \u201cSilver is a very good conductor of electricity, which a lot of people don\u2019t know. It\u2019s even a better conductor of electricity as opposed to copper. It doesn\u2019t corrode so in terms of the durability of those cells, they can get three or four times more life out of the cells.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that silver will become more of an industrial type of commodity for the clean energy sector, given that the US is already trying to shore up their domestic silver supply of silver and has allocated nearly half a trillion dollars in the next 10 years to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, the silver has always been purchased from Mexico and what we\u2019re finding now, is that the US is trying to firm up its critical minerals from Australia to preserve its movement forward from fossil fuels to the green energy sector.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment the US government has flagged major solar farms in Nevada and California and Australia will play a critical role in supplying all those raw commodities to the US.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll be conducting a regional exploration program out to the east of the Kempfield resource area,\u201d Kastellorizos says.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the course of 2023 we identified at least seven key geochemical anomalies spanning between 400m up to 1.7km in strike so in the first quarter of 2024 we plan to dispatch a technical team on the ground to start following up on some of the high-grade historic surface copper, silver, lead and zinc.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the basis of that, we\u2019re looking to \u2013 depending on the numbers that come back from the survey \u2013 put a few shallow drill holes into those newly identified areas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n This article was developed in collaboration with Argent Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The post Q+A: Why Argent Minerals\u2019 sees value in unearthing a 100-year VMS deposit with modern exploration<\/a> appeared first on Stockhead<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What influenced your decision to come on as managing director in 2022? <\/strong><\/h2>\n
What are some of the most exciting aspects about the project? <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Why do you think your resources stand out among your peer group?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What global resources do you think your project is comparable to?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How do silver players gain better traction in the market when it\u2019s not really talked about as widely as other commodity types?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
You\u2019ve got a scoping study planned for next year. What other key milestones have you got coming up in 2024?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Argent Minerals\u2019 share price today: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n