West Desert is located in west-central Utah, approximately 160km southwest of Salt Lake City.
The Project is accessible by excellent roads that link with major cities and rail hubs. Infrastructure and utilities are established with electricity connected to the project site and long-term water rights in place.
Exploration and resource activities have defined a large porphyry related, zinc-indium-polymetallic skarn and carbonate replacement deposit.
The deposit is part of a regional scale mineral system with multiple styles of mineralisation, and potential for several deposits of base and precious metals.
Maiden Resource Estimate
During early 2023, the Company announced its Maiden independent JORC 2012 Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the West Desert Project, consisting of 33.7Mt @ 3.83% Zn, 0.15% Cu and 9.1g/t Ag, which includes:
- 18.7Mt @ 2.8% Zn, 0.12% Cu and 11g/t Ag contained within an open-pit resource
- 15Mt @ 5.2% Zn, 0.18% Cu and 7g/t Ag contained within higher-grade underground resource
An update to the JORC MRE during December 2023 has added the important strategic and critical metals of indium and gold within an inferred resource, and includes:
- 18.7Mt @ 13g/t In and 0.09g/t Ag contained within an open-pit resource
- 15Mt @ 28.7g/t In and 0.12g/t Au contained within higher-grade underground resource
The resource update has added 23.8Moz of indium and 119Koz of gold to the existing 1.3Mt zinc, 49Kt copper and 10Moz silver at West Desert.
Maiden West Desert MRE Table:
| Category | Mt | Grade (Zn) | Grade (Cu) | Contained Metal (Tonnes) (Zn) | Contained Metal (Tonnes) (Cu) |
| Inferred | 27.4 | 3.79% | 0.14% | 1,037,278 | 40,588 |
| Inferred | 6.3 | 4.01% | 0.13% | 253,626 | 8,465 |
| Total | 33.7 | 3.83% | 0.15% | 1,290,904 | 49,053 |
Strategic Indium Resource
Indium is present in unusually high levels within all economic minerals at West Desert.
Indium is widely used in the electronics and semiconductor industries for the use in low carbon technology including batteries.
The US Department of the Interior has included indium as one of 35 mineral commodities considered critical to the economic and national security of the United States. Currently, the US is a 100% net importer of indium. West Desert is the only JORC compliant indium resource is the US.
Indium Resource Table:
| Category | Material | Mine type | Tonnes | In (g/t) | Au (g/t) | In (Oz) | Au (Oz) |
| Inferred | Oxide | Open Pit | 15,531,071 | 10.8 | 0.09 | 5,916,698 | 49,306 |
| Inferred | Sulphide | Open Pit | 3,140,102 | 23.89 | 0.10 | 2,646,148 | 11,076 |
| Inferred | Sulphide | Underground | 14,996,864 | 28.73 | 0.12 | 15,198,136 | 63,480 |
| Total | 33,668,038 | 20.01 | 0.110 | 23,763,978 | 118,761 |
Exploration and Growth Potential
The mineralisation at West Desert is currently located within two distinct zones, the Main Zone and the Deep Zone, and these are open at depth, and along strike to the east and west.
There is considerable potential to significantly expand the maiden resource. For example, the newly identified high-grade ‘Copper Zone’, where drilling returned results such as 17.22m grading 1.04% copper, 0.58g/t gold and 12.46g/t silver from a down-hole depth of 325.21m, has not being included in the resource and warrants further exploration. Numerous other high-grade copper and zinc drill intersections are located outside of the current resource shell, and only 10% of the porphyry system and prospective contact has been explored with drilling. This gives the West Desert Project outstanding exploration and resource upside.
Development Optionality
West Desert has a large and coherent orebody which supports a range of potential near-term, low-cost and high-margin development options.
Excellent metallurgical recoveries from sulphide and oxide ores, and 55% Zn and 32% Cu concentrates are achieved with traditional metallurgical and processing techniques.
Reports
23.8 Million Ounces of Indium Defined at West Desert
