thanks, Christian; I was looking at the Cabbage Spot prospect, which has very high Fe impurities. - hence the post to this Cabbage Spot thread
You are correct, I didn't see the earlier announcement on the other deposits with better grades.
The Company stated on the bulk test work: "This phase has successfully advanced our understanding and capability to produce high-purity silica sand, crucial for the photovoltaic industry, achieving >99.5% SiO2 and <100 ppm Fe2O3."
Sparkler Deposit 70 Mtonnes @ 96.84% Si02 with 0.34% Fe2O3 or 3400ppm Fe2O3. (screen shot below) Most of the deleterious elements are all in the fine sand fraction which is 5% of the deposit. So they need to wash out the fines, and it will do a lot of the upgrading as required. But the coarse and med grain size = 200 and 300ppm Fe2O3 in it also, (0.02% and 0.03%) with LOI% 800ppm and 900ppm (loss on ignition - during assay), which needs to be addressed. 135km from the wharf, and on farmland...
Compare it to Cape Flattery though, on the coast, long LOM, grade is <100ppm Fe2O3 straight out of the ground. https://www.cfsm.com.au They obviously dominate as low cost quartile producer.
Opaque pricing makes scoping study hard and very difficult for the market to value. We need an off-take agreement and the first shipment sent and funds cleared to get to a value step change that can be valued for ASX shareholders. Tough game... Hence the market cap is subdued.
The long game for the right deposit close to a wharf is good, and these operations can print cash. Don't get caught on a high-cost production story, or your funds will go the same way as Core Lithium (ASX: CXO)...
APS Price at posting:
5.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Not Held
