LONDON (Alliance News) - Thor Mining PLC on Monday said testwork on the Desert scheedlite deposit of its Pilot Mountain project in the US state of Nevada showed production of high-grade scheelite concentrate, a ore of tungsten.
Shares in Thor Mining were down 16% at 0.68 pence on Monday.
As well as successful testwork, assays of the head sample and tailings after scheelite recovery demonstrated "potentially economic levels of gold".
Highlights from the testwork included production of scheelite concentrate assaying more than 68% tungsten trioxide, metallurgical recovery of 74%, and gold assays of 0.29 grammes per tonne of ore in the initial feed and 0.33 grammes per tonne in combined tailings.
Thor Mining Executive Chair Mick Billing said: "The locked cycle testwork has demonstrated production of a high grade scheelite concentrate with good recoveries."
"We are following up the gold potential via extraction of sample pulps from previous testwork which will be re-assayed for gold."
"Significant potential exists for further enhancements to this work which may improve project economic outcomes."
Billing also noted that Tungsten is classed at a critical mineral in the US, which has no domestic tungsten production.
"We continue to have a principle focus on securing off-take and finance agreements for our flagship Molyhil project, and we will keep investors appraised of progress as appropriate. However our other projects, including Pilot Mountain, have significant value and we are committed to continuing to take these forward," said Billing.
Thor Energy (THR)