Australian Bauxite Limited (ASX:ABZ) Announce 5 Million Tonnes Maiden Taralga Bauxite Resource
Sydney, Sep 16, 2010 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Bauxite Limited (
ASX:ABZ) has 30 bauxite tenements in eastern Australia covering more than 7,100 km2 and is well advanced in its program to complete first-pass exploratory drilling of all project areas during calendar year 2010 - 6 months ahead of schedule.
ABx is also preparing to enter into commercial discussions during the remainder of 2010 with potential partners and/or offtake customers for a few of its 30 project areas. Taralga EL 7357 located near Goulburn, southern NSW is one of those areas earmarked for discussions. A site visit is being conducted on Thursday 16th September and for that reason, ABx is announcing all information it has at hand including a small maiden resource that has been discovered to date from the preliminary, first-pass drilling.
A more extensive resource infill drilling program is planned for 1H 2011 but because of the discovery of very thick zones of good quality bauxite between 10 metres and 13 metres thick, some follow-up drilling has commenced at Taralga in the last few days. This may generate data sufficient for a resource upgrade later this year but the follow-up drilling program is primarily focussed on assessing the general potential for easily mined bauxite zones of Direct Shipping Ore grades. Taralga is located near a major railway line leading directly to Port Kembla export terminal. A Review of Environmental Factors is underway which will clear the way for a more extensive testing program.
ABx has applied for an exploration area adjacent to Taralga EL 7357 to ensure it covers the prospective ground for bauxite in this district.
The deposit lies at surface on topographic high point which have been largely left uncultivated because of the poor soil that develops on bauxite. The iron levels are generally highest in the top layer of iron-rich gravel (technically described as pisolite layers).
Parts of the deposit have been confirmed as high grade, Direct Shipping Grade ("DSO" bauxite) up to 13 metres thick and these areas will be assessed by the current follow-up drilling and drilled in more detail during the first half of 2011.
BENEFICIATION CHARACTERISTICS
Beneficiation: The bauxite samples have been screened at 0.26mm size with the coarser fraction retained and analysed so as to start the assessment of beneficiation. The following results are crude totals only and do not include any assessment of excluding iron-rich pisolite layers during mining. More beneficiation test work will be done when follow-up drill results are received over coming months.
Note about the increased tonnage: applying the cut-off grades to the screened grades leads to more intercepts and thicker zones downhole that exceed the cut-off grades. Hence, the tonnage of in-situ bauxite above cut-off grade can increase with screening. The yield factor has not been applied to the tonnage quoted above because not all material would require screening.
Yield: the simple total, volume weighted average yield on the 0.26mm screen is 63%. The tonnage in the table (see link at the bottom of the release) is the in-situ material above cut-off grade prior to screening and the grades are the grades of the screened material sizing greater than 0.26mm.
RESOURCE ESTIMATE METHOD
Drilling on a random pattern governed by site availability was done in the northeastern part of EL 7357 to test several of the many prominent bauxite plateaus.
During August 2010, 98 holes were drilled totalling 710 metres. Drill samples were collected at 1 metre intervals from the aircore drillholes and analysed at ALS Laboratories in Brisbane including trihydrate (THA) available alumina (Avl Al2O3) and reactive silica (SiO2 Rx) measurements. Leach conditions to measure available Avl Al2O3 and reactive SiO2 Rx were 1g leached in 10ml of 90gpl NaOH at 143 degrees C for 30 minutes Estimation was done by a polygonal modelling using Voronoi polygons with a tightly defined resource boundary around the holes. Bauxite density was conservatively assumed at 1.8 dry tonnes per cubic metre in situ.
For the complete Australian Bauxite announcement including figures and tables, please refer to the following link:
http://www.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/63730-ASX-ABZ-606043.pdf
About Australian Bauxite Ltd
Australian Bauxite Limited (ABx) (ASX:ABX) has its first bauxite mine in Tasmania & controls the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province. ABx's 11 bauxite tenements in Queensland, New South Wales & Tasmania totalling 662 km2 are all 100% owned, unencumbered & free of third-party royalties. ABx's bauxite is gibbsite trihydrate (THA) bauxite that can be processed into alumina at low temperature.
ABx has committed a large proportion of its expenditure into Research and Development to find ways to capitalise on the main strengths of its bauxite type which is very clean, free of all deleterious elements and partitioned into layers, nodules, particles and grains of different qualities that can be separated into different product streams using physical, chemical and geophysical methods.
ABx has declared large Mineral Resources in northern NSW, southern NSW, Binjour in central QLD & in northern Tasmania.
ABx's first mine commenced at Bald Hill near Campbell Town, Tasmania in December 2014 - the first new Australian bauxite mine for more than 35 years.
ABx aspires to identify large bauxite resources in the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province and has created significant bauxite development projects in 3 states, Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania. Its bauxite deposits are favourably located for direct shipping of bauxite to both local and export customers.
ABx endorses best practices on agricultural land, strives to leave land and environment better than we find it. We only operate where welcomed.
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