Substantial New Bauxite Resource of 73 Million Tonnes at Felicitas Project, Darling Range Western Australia
Perth, June 5, 2012 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Bauxite Resources Limited (
ASX:BAU) is pleased to announce an initial resource for the Felicitas bauxite deposit in the Darling Range Western Australia. The resource is situated on a small number of large private landholdings located approximately 100km north east of Perth, and 10km from the town of Wundowie. The resource is less than 5km from existing rail infrastructure providing a direct link to Fremantle/Kwinana Port being approximately 100km away.
The Felicitas resource is contained within the Company's Bauxite Alumina Joint Ventures ("BAJV") joint venture with Yankuang Resources Ltd ("Yankuang"); BAJV is managing the project.
The new resource provides a 143% increase in the total bauxite resources in which the Company has an interest.
The Company considers that the new Felicitas resource advances the prospects of the BAJV achieving its stated aim of defining a minimum of 90 million tonnes of refinery grade bauxite to underpin the prospects of development of a long term alumina refinery for the joint venture. Whilst considerable effort will still be required to achieve this objective the Company is very pleased with the results achieved by the BAJV team thus far and notes that this resource has potential for increase with further exploration drilling.
Location & Logistics
The Felicitas deposit extends across 2,500Ha of large private landholdings, 10km north of Wundowie and 100km north northeast of Perth (Figure 1). The deposit is situated on a small number of large private landholdings readily accessible by road that have been cleared for farming and grazing, and which are located less than 5km from existing rail infrastructure and being approximately 100km kilometres to the Kwinana port . The area is bounded to the west by state forest, to the north and east by existing quarry operations, and to the south by farmland.
Resource Details
The Felicitas deposit is situated on granted exploration tenements E70-3159, E70-3900 and E70-4021. It is comprised of a bauxite horizon of 2m to 16m thickness that is typically covered by 0.5m to 2m of loose overburden. The resource estimate, completed by Runge Limited, was based on 3,624 vertical holes drilled for 24,085 metres on a nominal 80m x 80m drill pattern. The available alumina and reactive silica results quoted are based on low temperature bomb analysis (143°C), and the results indicate that the majority of alumina present is as the tri-hydrate mineral gibbsite.
The deposit is considered to have further resource growth potential as drilling programs to date have yet to fully test the lateral extent of the mineralisation and it is therefore not considered to be closed off. Additional drilling is planned to commence in 2012 with the intention of adding to the resource base and to provide material for beneficiation and metallurgical test work. This test work is in turn aimed at determining the potential for improving the economics of the existing resource through removal of excess detrimental materials, principally quartz and reactive silica, thus upgrading the quality of the ore.
The Felicitas deposit adds to the global resource base that BRL and its joint venture partners have defined within the northern Darling Range of Western Australia. Table 3 below provides a summary of the total bauxite resources and the bauxite rights that are attributable to the company.
To view the complete Bauxite Resources announcement including Tables and Figures, please click the link below:
http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/7MZ52A8U
About Bauxite Resources Limited
Bauxite Resources (ASX:BAU) (OTCMKTS:BXRDF) was established with a substantial tenement holding in Western Australia to develop new bauxite supply for the global alumina/aluminium industry. The Company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in October 2007.
The Darling Range in the south-west of Western Australia (WA) is the world's largest bauxite mining and alumina refining region producing around 20% of the world's alumina. This area has mined bauxite and refined alumina since the 1960s. These industries are leaders in sustainable resource development and represent the fifth largest sector of WA's resource industry.
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