Blackstone Minerals Limited announced it has intersected massive sulfide in four maiden drill holes at Ban Chang, part of its Ta Khoa Nickel-Cu-PGE project in Vietnam. The drill holes were drilled more than 1.2km apart and along strike within a 1.2km-long massive sulfide target zone defined by high priority EM plates. Earlier hole BC20-02 intersected 1.2m MSV from 87.0m and BC20-04 intersected a 15.4m wide zone of sulfide vein mineralization. The drilling is part of an ongoing campaign to target regional MSV as Blackstone aims to build its resource inventory at Ta Khoa to supplement the Ban Phuc maiden resource, which is on track for completion in the third quarter, 2020. The Ban Chang prospect is located 2.5km south-east of the Ban Phuc deposit and processing facility, adjacent to the Chim Van ­ Co Muong fault system. The prospect geology consists of a tremolitic dyke swarm within phyllites, sericite schists and quartzites of the Devonian Ban Cai Formation. The known mineralisation style is mainly veins and lenses of massive sulfide, as well as disseminated sulfides (DSS) hosted within tremolite dykes. The dyke swarm is approximately 900m long and varies between 5m and 60m wide. The dykes and massive sulfide are interpreted to be hosted within a splay (and subsidiary structures) off the major regional Chim Van ­ Co Muong fault system. Blackstone's Ta Khoa Nickel­Cu-PGE project has a combination of large DSS nickel targets and 25 other prospects, including multiple high-grade MSV targets of the style that were mined at Ban Phuc from an average vein width of 1.3m. The Ban Phuc Nickel mine operated for 3.5 years between 2013 and 2016, producing 20.7kt Ni, 10.1kt Cu and 0.67kt Co, before closing when the defined mineable reserves were depleted. The high-grade Ban Phuc MSV is less than 50m south of the Ban Phuc DSS deposit and remains underexplored at depths below the base of previous mining. Many other MSV targets are within potential trucking distance of the existing 450ktpa Ban Phuc processing facility that was built to international standards and has been on care and maintenance since 2016. Blackstone is evaluating near-mine MSV and other potential DSS targets to continue drill testing during the 2020 season, with the concept of identifying high-grade and further disseminated mineralisation for either an early restart of the Ban Phuc mining operation, or the potential to blend higher grade MSV mineralisation with the larger tonnage DSS mineralisation for processing. Blackstone believes that the Ta Khoa project represents a true district scale Nickel-Cu-PGE sulfide opportunity of a calibre rarely controlled by a junior company. The project also has significant infrastructure advantages that include the existing 450ktpa processing facility, abundant low cost hydro-electric power, a skilled low-cost labour force, and is located in a country that has become an Asian hub for electronics and battery manufacturing with a growing demand for nickel sulfate used in lithium-ion battery manufacturing.