Playfair’s tungsten resource grows at Grey River

Playfair Mining (PLY-V) has increased its inferred resource at Grey River, Nfld., by 16%, to 1.2 million tonnes grading 0.73% tungsten trioxide (WO₃) for 18.8 million lbs. WO₃, or 853,000 metric tonne units (MTUs). (MTUs are the standard weight measure of the tungsten trade, and one MTU contains 10 kilograms of WO₃.)

Ninety-four percent of the resource tonnage is contained in the No. 10 vein, but all three veins at the site are open for expansion. The junior says there is “room to enhance the already robust resource size through the expansion of these veins, and through the exploration for additional structures.”

To calculate the new resource, Playfair used a cut-off grade of 0.2% WO₃ based on the cut-off grades for North American Tungsten‘s (NTC-V) Cantung mine in Western Canada. Resources were reported at a 1-metre average vein width, and all areas in the model grading less than 0.2% WO₃ over a 1-metre mining width were removed from the resource. 

The 100%-owned deposit near the fishing village of Grey River on the south coast of Newfoundland is the most advanced of the company’s four, high-grade tungsten deposits in Canada. 

Golder Associates has been retained to complete an updated preliminary economic assessment incorporating the bigger resource, while Stantec Consulting is advancing environmental and permitting work, and SGS Minerals Services is completing metallurgical testing to a pilot-plant scale.

The Grey River tungsten veins are fluorite-rich, wolframite-quartz-greisen vein deposits. Most of the tungsten mineralization is wolframite with small scheelite occurrences.

Tungsten mineralization was first discovered near Grey River in 1956. Later exploration by the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) from 1957 to 1970 included surface geological mapping, trenching and diamond drilling on five of the better veins, and driving a 1,920-metre exploration adit into and along the No. 10 vein, and then driving 20 short raises into the vein and collecting a 249-tonne bulk sample for metallurgical tests. 

Playfair says that Asarco had steered the project towards production in the early seventies, but shelved it because of low tungsten prices. The property changed hands several times with no further exploration until Playfair acquired the property.

More than 300 veins and lenses have been mapped on the surface, but so far only two or three appear to have been partially evaluated by Asarco, Playfair says.

The Vancouver-based junior says that it is “in discussions with several end users of tungsten regarding production potential, financing opportunities and offtake agreements,” and notes that tungsten prices have increased by 70% over the last two years alongside rising demand for the metal in China, “supply issues” and “ongoing demand in the world’s principal economies.”

Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal and is required in products ranging from jet turbine engines and high-speed cutting tools, to electronic circuitry and surgical instruments. The strategic metal is priced at US$19.85 per lb. 

Tungsten prices are quoted per MTU of contained WO3. Ammonium paratungstate is an intermediate product of tungsten metal production. A price of US$437.50 per MTU equates to US$43.75 per kilogram, or US$19.85 per lb.  

At presstime, Playfair shares were up 18% to 6.5¢ within a 52-week trading range of 3.5¢-32¢ per share.