True North Copper has revealed a 20 per cent lift in silver ounces at its Vero deposit as part of an updated mineral resource estimate.

Chief executive officer and managing director Bevan Jones said it came as the precious metal was seeing a supply-demand imbalance through its use in solar and other technology.

“This updated resource also provides greater confidence in the deposit, following TNC’s first program of confirmatory drilling and a substantially updated geological model, which incorporates historic resource depletion by previous mining,” he said.

True North’s updated copper-silver mineral resource estimate for Vero stands at 15.03Mt at 1.46 per cent copper and 10.59g/t silver for a contained 220,000t copper and 5.13Moz silver.

While silver has lifted, the company’s reassessment of underground mine voids and introduction of an improved geological deposit model has resulted in a 3 per cent decrease in copper metal tonnes.

Mr Jones said True North saw exploration upside within reach at Ivena, north of the resource, and along a 10km section of the Dorman fault where it was actively exploring for satellite zones of mineralisation.

Related: True North launches Mount Oxide survey

Vero is part of the larger Mount Oxide project area, where True North has a MIMDAS induced polarisation, resistivity and magnetotellurics survey underway.

This deep-seeking geophysical survey work is partially funded by a $300,000 Queensland Government Collaborative Exploration Initiative (CEI) grant.

Mr Jones said a MIMDAS line at the Camp Gossans target at Mount Oxide was complete.

“The survey team are now moving to the north to acquire the line over the Vero deposits with the aim to identify drill targets at depth below the current resource,” Mr Jones said.

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