Australian Mines goes large on Flemington explorationPicture: Columbia PicturesSHARESpecial Report: Australian Mines is pulling out all the stops with the largest ever drilling program at its Flemington cobalt-nickel-scandium project in New South Wales.The Flemington project covers a significant portion of the prospective Tout complex, which also hosts Clean TeQ’s (ASX:CLQ) Sunrise nickel-cobalt-scandium project.The project is expected to complement to Australian Mines’ (ASX:AUZ) flagship Sconi project, which is nearing a development decision.Australian Mines’ last drilling campaign at Flemington tripled the project’s cobalt footprint and confirmed that the high-grade zone remained ‘open’. This means they haven’t found where the mineralisation ends yet.Measured resources for Flemington are currently estimated at 2.5 million tonnes at 0.103 per cent cobalt and 403 parts per million scandium – but just 1 per cent of the prospective area has been tested to date.Hear it first with our daily newsletter.SUBSCRIBEWe don't spam. Read our privacy policyThe new 10,000m resource-building drilling program will target these extensions to the project’s high-grade cobalt zone.“This latest phase of extensional drilling at Flemington represents the largest program ever completed over the project area and is a clear indication of Australian Mines’ confidence in the project’s ability to represent a future potential second production source of nickel and cobalt sulphate for the company,” managing director Benjamin Bell said.“Our previous drilling program had already tripled the cobalt mineralisation footprint and the current program has the potential to further increase the cobalt mineralisation footprint and provide a strong foundation from which a large-scale economic resource may evolve.”Results from this program are expected in early 2020.Earlier this month, Australian Mines flagged that it might secure a pre-payment from South Korean offtake partner SK Innovation that could help finance construction of the multi-generational Sconi cobalt-nickel-scandium project in QueenslandSconi has the potential to produce 7000 tonnes of cobalt sulphate, 46,800 tonnes of nickel sulphate, and 48 tonnes of scandium oxide per year across an initial 30-year life.
