JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed Thor Mining on Friday said it would intensify its focus on its Pilot Mountain tungsten/silver/copper project, in the US; as well as the Kapunda copper project and the Molyhill tungsten project, in Australia.

“Our main business investment decisions will be strictly focused on [these] projects and any directly related and compatible developments from a geographic, commodity and strategic perspective,” Thor chairperson Mick Billing said.

He noted that recent progress achieved in respect of each project had been considerable. “The company has access to numerous additional opportunities including precious and strategic metals projects, and in the event of an opportunity considered truly outstanding its value will not be disregarded.

“However, we will consider transferring such new opportunities into a separate unit from which value can be extracted, but which will not draw materially upon the company’s financial resources or its management time resource.”

Tungsten has been listed as a critical commodity by the US Department of Interior, increasing the strategic significance of the Nevada-based Pilot Mountain project in a country where there are no domestic tungsten mining operations.

Thor has about £1.6-million cash at bank and sufficient working capital to undertake and fund planned activities until well into 2019.

“We are keen to further communicate our story to a diverse audience, including institutional investors, and will be revising our marketing approach to achieve this, including website enhancement and the provision of institutional research reporting covering the company.

“Of particular importance is the continuing engagement with third parties keen to consider strategically significant tungsten and copper opportunities. Through sale, joint venture and offtake agreements, companies such as Thor can revolutionise their business model and secure greater market recognition and a valuation that reflects the inherent value of their business. That is now our absolute focus at Thor Mining,” said Billing.

Following extensive preparatory work on ore sorting the company published an opencut reserve statement which demonstrated a probable reserve of 3.5 t of ore and 10 200 t of tungsten trioxide at 0.29% with 4 300 t of molybdenum at 0.12% at Molyhill.

This higher reserve improved the mine economics considerably and extended the current mine life to around seven years. Of even more significance; however is that the technical review demonstrated the potential for underground mining which has not to date been included in mine planning activities and which, if successfully proven viable, would substantially increase the mine life and mine economics.

An upgraded definitive feasibility study is now under preparation, which will draw together the work undertaken to date and look more closely at the fresh and highly positive findings of late.

The resource calculation at Pilot Mountain included 32 720 t of tungsten trioxide, 192 t of sliver and 14 300 t of copper and, since the initial resource calculation the company’s Pilot Mountain drilling work has identified further tungsten, silver and copper mineralisation that has not been incorporated into the resource calculation to date.