Apollo’s French tungsten project gets a sharper geological lens

French survey targets Salau’s tungsten geology

Apollo Minerals Limited (ASX:AON) has finished the fieldwork, but not yet delivered the result that matters most: a new set of geological targets. The company has completed a detailed helicopter-borne magnetic and radiometric survey over its 100%-owned Couflens Tungsten-Gold Project in southern France, in partnership with the French Geological Survey, BRGM, and its subsidiary BRGM Explore.

The focused survey covered 180 line kilometres across roughly 19 square kilometres, with lines spaced 100 metres apart. It was completed within a wider 500-metre-spaced regional survey across the Pyrénées-Cévennes area under France’s national mineral resources inventory, known as the IRM Project.

Data could refine exploration around Salau

The attraction is the geology beneath the survey area. Couflens contains the historic Salau mine, which operated from 1971 to 1986 and reportedly produced about 930,000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1.5% WO3. The tungsten mineralisation is associated with a granodiorite intrusion and surrounding skarn, while pyrrhotite-rich sulphides may provide magnetic signatures that can be detected from the air.

Apollo expects the new data to be processed and evaluated over the coming months. The company says it will integrate the magnetic results with its existing exploration database to define target anomalies, refine its geological models and improve structural interpretations. That is useful groundwork, but it is not yet a discovery, resource estimate or confirmation of additional mineralisation.

Underground drilling remains the next catalyst

Planning is also underway for an initial low-impact underground drilling program within the existing mine workings, focused on the Véronique zone. Apollo says the proposed work would aim to expand known mineralisation, twin historical drill holes and test the broader deposit’s mineralised width.

The project has strategic visibility in France because the IRM program is intended to improve national knowledge of mineral resources and support access to raw materials considered important for the energy and digital transition. BRGM officials described Couflens as a strategic national asset and a promising project for critical raw material supply, while Apollo said it intends to advance the work with the French State and local stakeholders under best-in-class environmental practices. The more immediate test, however, will be whether the processed geophysics produces targets strong enough to justify and sharpen the planned drilling program.