Sultan hits strong moly in BC

Vancouver – Sultan Minerals (SUL-V, SLMLF-O) is being rewarded for its efforts in searching out molybdenum at its Jersey-Emerald property in southwestern BC, a site that once hosted Canadas second-largest tungsten mine.

Four of the first six holes investigating the East Dodger molybdenum zone on the Jersey-Emerald property returned strong results. Hole JM07-04 assayed 0.04% MoS₂ over its entire 466 metres from surface, including 167 metres grading 0.10% MoS₂ from 240 metres downhole and a 3-metre high-grade horizon of 1.81% MoS₂.

Hole JM07-01 intersected 0.05% MoS₂ over 4.8 metres from 106 metres depth, followed by 0.04% over 21 metres from 265 metres downhole. And hole JM07-05 returned 9 metres grading 0.13% starting from 282 metres.

The news doubled Sultans share price on June 6th trading, up to 48 from 24 on more than 18 million shares of volume.

Sultan purchased the claims covering the former Jersey and Emerald lead, zinc, and tungsten mines, which were operated by Placer Dome from 1947 until 1972, in 1993. The property near Salmo, BC, remained inactive until recently, when the global shortage of tungsten pushed Sultan to explore just how much of the mineral remains in the ground.

While its tungsten exploration work is going well, strong molybdenum prices driven by high demand from a limited number of suppliers prompted Sultan to explore the region for moly as well. The East Dodger molybdenum zone has now been tested with 27 drill holes, 25 of which intersected molybdenum. The mineralized zone occurs over an area roughly 1,040 metres north-south by 270 metres east-west and remains open to the east, west, and at depth.

The first six core holes were designed to investigate the lateral limits of the zone, and as such were low-angle holes drilled in a fan formation form a single underground drill station. Sultan hopes to release results from 13 other recently drilled holes by July.

In late 2006 the company released a NI 43-101 resource estimate for the Jersey-Emerald site that confirmed considerable amounts of tungsten remained in the previously mined property. The tungsten zones were at that time estimated to contain measured and indicated resources of 2.51 million tonnes averaging 0.37% tungsten (WO₃); the molybdenum zone was estimated to hold indicated resources of 28,000 tonnes averaging 0.098%. Those estimates were based on historical cores and data from 2005 and early 2006 drilling campaigns.

Since then Sultan has uncovered further tungsten-gold hot spots, as well as the recently assayed molybdenum cores.