Overview

Vital Metals Ltd is a public company which listed on the ASX in October 2005 to take advantage of the surging demand for minor steel alloying metals, specifically tungsten (chemical symbol W) and molybdenum (chemical symbol Mo). The company is concentrating on its activities within Australia at this stage.

World tungsten production has been dominated by China, which has produced more than 85 per cent of primary tungsten output in recent years. This continues to be the case but, as with many other metals, the price and marketing structure is undergoing changes. The tungsten price has risen very substantially over the past year and the projections appear strong. For more information see the 'Metals Market Overview' within this site.

There has been little or no exploration for tungsten minerals in Australia since the early 1980's.

Vital Metals has acquired an outstanding tungsten property in far North Queensland known as Watershed. Watershed was discovered in 1978 by the Utah Development Company which carried out extensive drilling and other work leading to an Inferred Resource estimate of 13.9 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.35% WO₃ .

Vital's principal activity since listing has been to conduct the work which is required to develop a substantial tungsten mine at Watershed. This includes drilling, metallurgical studies and the like.

A new resource estimate was received for the Watershed deposit. The global resource figure, at a cut-off grade of 0.15% WO₃ , is 15.2 million tonnes at an overall grade of 0.29% WO₃ for a contained WO₃ content of 44,100 tonnes (63% of this total falls under the Measured and Indicated categories).