Goulburn-Taralga Bauxite Resource up by 50% - 38 Million Ton
Sydney, May 31, 2012 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Emerging bauxite exploration and development company, Australian Bauxite Limited (
ASX:ABZ) has 40 bauxite tenements totalling more than 8,700 km2 covering the core of the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province. As announced on 30 May 2012, a discovery of extraordinarily thick bauxite at Mt Rae near Taralga, 40km north of Goulburn southern NSW in February-March 2012 has led to an expansion of the Pre Feasibility Study (PFS) for the Goulburn Bauxite Project and a resource upgrade has now also been undertaken as part of that expanded PFS.
ABx and Marubeni Corporation are conducting a AU$1.5 million pre feasibility study of the Goulburn Bauxite Project. This zone of thick bauxite increases the resource potential of the Taralga bauxite areas, near Goulburn NSW.
The district's deposits contain thick zones of premium grade bauxite, with good potential for more discoveries. All deposits are gibbsite-rich (trihydrate) bauxite, low in reactive silica and free of refractory mineral boehmite (monohydrate).
All horizons produce Direct Shipping or "DSO" bauxite.
Resource Estimation and Deposit Geometry
Areas of thick, good quality bauxite continue to be discovered across the Taralga - Mt Rae Areas and new bauxite target areas have been identified in new tenements that have been recently granted. Over the last 12 months, bauxite resources at Taralga have increased by 50% from 25 million tonnes to the current estimate of 37.9 million tonnes.
Metallurgical Results Encouraging: Main Production is DSO Bauxite Metallurgical tests on large samples have been conducted as part of the Pre Feasibility Study, with METS Engineers of Perth coordinating and summarising the testwork.
The Goulburn Bauxite Project deposits typically have an upper half that contains nodules or "pisoliths" of a black, glassy material which is an emery, comprising mainly fused alumina and trace iron oxides. Well-known bauxite mineralogist, Professor Eggleton of the Australian National University coined the term "PDM" for these black pisoliths which he found in bauxites from Weipa, Northern QLD. PDM stands for "poorly diffracting material" when subjected to X-ray diffraction.
Metallurgical tests on the PDM-bearing bauxite ("PDM-DSO Bx") from the Taralga area have been able to recover the PDM by gravity methods and the remaining bauxite is good-quality DSO bauxite, similar to the DSO bauxite that typically occurs in the lower half of the deposits. This means that overall, DSO Bauxite will represent approximately 80% to 85% of total tonnes produced from the Goulburn Bauxite Project. The recovered PDM emery material can be sold at good prices for industrial uses.
For the full tables, charts and data, please visit:
http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-ABZ-680690.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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