Xstrata has joined forces with Irish company Minco to spend €7 million this year on a zinc exploration project in Ireland.
Minco has announced that it has agreed to spend €7 million to extend the existing exploration programme at the companies’ zinc and lead project at Tobermalug, Pallas Green, Co Limerick. The project has already been established as holding over 11 million tonnes of zinc and lead will be aimed at increasing proved reserves in the deposit to 15 million tonnes. The partners spent over €2 million on the project last year in what is one of the biggest onshore exploration programmes undertaken in Ireland in the last 50 years.
“This planned 2010 programme will include about 70,000 tonnes of diamond drilling in about 150 drill holes allocated within and adjacent to the Tobermalug zinc-lead deposit, and on further exploration drilling in the general Caherconlish area within a 3.5km radius of Tobermalug,” the company said in a statement.
The drilling programme is aimed at increasing the tonnage and grade of the existing deposit, to explore for lateral extensions of the deposit and to explore additional ore deposits in the Caherconlish area. In the latter regard zinc and lead deposits have already been identified at nearby Caherconlish South and Srahane west and Minco says that the three deposits could potentially contain more and higher grades of zinc and lead.
Xstrata estimates that only around 30 per cent of the potential resource has been explored.
Minco holds 23.6 per cent of the licence while Xstrata owns 76.4 per cent. The entire deposit covers an 11sq km area spanning northeast Limerick and southwest Tipperary.
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