Australian tungsten developer, Tungsten Mining NL (ASX: TGN) ('TGN' or 'the Company') is pleased to report an update to the Mineral Resource Estimate at the Mt Mulgine Project in the Murchison Region of Western Australia, approximately 350km north northeast of Perth.
Tungsten Mining's CEO Craig Ferrier commented, 'We have delivered on the objectives of our resource definition drilling program, increasing the size of the resource and improving confidence with 70% now in the Indicated category. This has been complimented by an increase in contained tungsten and molybdenum and accessory minerals, including a maiden resource for copper and 1 million ounces of gold. The updated Mulgine Trench Mineral Resource estimate is an outstanding result for the Company and an extremely gratifying outcome for the efforts of our entire development team.'
Mt Mulgine Project
The Company owns 100% of the tungsten and molybdenum rights on a group of tenements that have been the subject of significant previous evaluation for tungsten and molybdenum. The Company also has the rights to all byproducts from the mining of tungsten and molybdenum. Near surface Mineral Resources have been delineated at the Mulgine Trench and Mulgine Hill deposits, which have been the subject of ongoing evaluation by the Company.
In April 2019, the Company commenced work on a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) for large scale mining operations at the Mt Mulgine Project. A primary objective of the PFS is that a significant portion of the Mulgine Trench Mineral Resource is classified as Indicated, to support the declaration of a maiden Ore Reserve for the larger Mt Mulgine Project. In July 2019, the Company commenced resource definition drilling at Mulgine Trench and has received results from all 280 reverse circulation (RC) holes and associated diamond tails drilled in this program. Resource consultants, Optiro Pty Ltd (Optiro) were engaged to update the Mulgine Trench Mineral Resource and completed this exercise in May 2020.
Mulgine Trench Mineral Resource
The previous Mulgine Trench Mineral Resource estimate was completed by Optiro in December 2019 for tungsten, molybdenum, gold and silver. The estimate was based on 80 metre to 180 metre spaced sections with 40 metre spaced holes on sections. Grade estimation used Ordinary Kriging (OK) in Datamine Studio RM software using top-cut 2m composited samples within the mineralised domains developed for each of the elements. Since the December 2019 Mineral Resource estimate, the Company has drilled an additional 153 RC holes for 28,732 metres and seven HQ diamond tails for 595 metres.
The reported Mineral Resource is constrained within limits defined by a pit shell with an ammonium paratungstate (APT) price of US$350 per metric tonne unit (mtu) revenue factor. This pit shell was used to demonstrate that there are reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction in accordance with the 2012 editon of the JORC Code. At a 0.05% WO3 cut-off grade, this has resulted in; 19% increase in tonnes increase in contained metal of 20% in tungsten, 23% for molybdenum, 17% in gold and 26% for silver, and 92,000 tonnes of copper estimated into the block model 70% upgrade of the total Mineral Resource estimate to Indicated status.
The tungsten and molybdenum reported within the May 2020 Mineral Resource estimate constitute the dominant minerals within the Mulgine Trench deposit pursuant to the terms of the Mt Mulgine mineral rights agreement between the Company and Minjar Gold Pty Ltd, with gold, silver and copper identified as accessory minerals and therefore potential by-products to be recovered from mining tungsten and molybdenum. It should be noted that whilst the accessory minerals may have the potential to contribute value as a by-product, they are not considered economic to mine in their own right.
Contact:
Craig Ferrier
Tel: +61 8 9486 8492
Email: craig.ferrier@tungstenmining.com
About Tungsten Mining
Australian tungsten developer, Tungsten Mining NL is an Australian based resources company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The Company's prime focus is the exploration and development of tungsten projects in Australia. Tungsten (chemical symbol W), occurs naturally on Earth, not in its pure form but as a constituent of other minerals, only two of which support commercial extraction and processing - wolframite ((Fe, Mn) WO4 ) and scheelite (CaWO4 ).
Tungsten has the highest melting point of all elements except carbon - around 3400-degreeC giving it excellent high temperature mechanical properties and the lowest expansion coefficient of all metals. Tungsten is a metal of considerable strategic importance, essential to modern industrial development (across aerospace and defence, electronics, automotive, extractive and construction sectors) with uses in cemented carbides, high-speed steels and super alloys, tungsten mill products and chemicals. Through exploration and acquisition, the Company has established a globally significant tungsten resource inventory in its portfolio of advanced mineral projects across Australia. This provides the platform for the Company to become a major player within the global primary tungsten market through the development of low-cost tungsten concentrate production.
TUNGSTEN MINING NL 
