CUDECO Limited (CDU) shares surged 9.6 per cent following a drilling update at Wilgar that revealed significant prospects for gold, silver and a rare metal used in solar panels.
Chairman Wayne McCrae, says bedrock drilling on the site shows there’s ‘something rich beneath’, with 39g/t of gold, 350g/t of silver and 730 g/t of tellurium.
“We’ve discovered tellurium up there which goes at $220,000 a tonne – it’s mostly used in steel but when they make solar panels they have to use tellurium in the glass,” he says.
“The known world reserves of tellurium are 20,000 tonnes and they’ve even banned it from export from China, that’s how rare it is.
“It’s a shining light for the market and moths get attracted to bright lights.”
The Wilgar site is part of Cudeco’s Rocklands Group Copper Project, which also involves copper and cobalt, with official resources estimated at 25 million tonnes.
“We’ve got the whole project up there already and we’ve already got 25 million tonnes, so we’re just waiting on the mines department to grant mining leases.
“We’re expecting production early to mid-2012, but that depends when the leases are issued.”
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