Drilling begins on Cape Flattery Silica Sands Project
Key highlights
• A 25-hole drilling program begins today on Metallica’s 100% owned silica sand project
• Approval of the drilling program granted by Traditional Land Owners
• Drilling of white silica sand dunes next to the world class Cape Flattery Silica sand mine owned by Mitsubishi;
• Project is within the designated Port of Cape Flattery, which is excluded from the Great Barrier Marine Park area; and
• Global market forecast for the use of Silica Sands is expected to grow substantially.
Metallica Minerals Limited (Metallica, ASX: MLM) is pleased to announce that following the signing of a Conduct and Compensation Agreement with Traditional Landowners (see ASX release: Conduct & Compensation Agreement signed for the Cape Flattery Silica Sand Project; 25 November 2020), drilling on the 100% owned subsidiary Cape Flattery Silica Pty Ltd (CFS) project is scheduled to start today.
Planned Drilling Program
A total of twenty-five (25) locations are planned to be drilled within target area 1, see figures below. Permission to drill from the Aboriginal Corporations was approved on the basis that all drill hole locations will be on existing tracks within the EPM area.
Metallica Executive Chairman, Theo Psaros said “we were very pleased to announce our Maiden Resource for the CFS project (see ASX release: Maiden Silica Sand Resource; 30 November 2020) and we are now pleased to have permission from the Traditional Land Owners and can now implement this maiden drilling program. We look forward to updating the market with the results of the drilling program once the results are known.”
About the Cape Flattery Silica (CFS) Project
The CFS project is adjacent to the world class Cape Flattery Silica Sand mining and shipping operation owned by Mitsubishi.
On 17 January 2020, Metallica advised the ASX that a sampling program completed in the last quarter 2019 at CFS in Far North Queensland had confirmed the presence of high purity silica sands. This exploration program consisted of eight (8) hand auger holes to a maximum depth of 5m within the CFS Eastern Exploration Target area of the tenement (refer to tenement map on page 3). (see ASX Release “High Purity Silica Sands confirmed at Cape Flattery” 17 January 2020).
On 30 November 2020, Metallica advised the ASX that it had achieved a Maiden JORC Inferred resource of 12.85 million tonnes @ 99.28% SiO2 for its 100% owned Cape Flattery Silica Sand Project (CFS). This result had been based on hand auger work completed in previous programs.
The independent assessment of this auger hole drilling was conducted by consultants Ausrocks Pty Ltd. The final marketable product being sought is a high silica (SiO2) grade sand, the SiO2 content by percentage would be used to quantify in-situ material as a resource. Cut-off grades were adopted based on analysis of raw assay data and grade tonnage plots completed on the block model to optimise the average SiO2 grade and quantity of the resource at varied reporting levels.
From the 8 auger holes that were used in the resource estimate the SiO2 percentage ranged from 95.01%-99.70%:
• Inferred Resource in accordance with the JORC Code 2012 – A cut-off grade 98.4% has been defined based on the surrounding data.
These results show there is potential to produce a premium grade silica product using standard processing techniques.
Excellent patience, strategic vision and hard yards put in by BOD on this - a real credit to all including we SHs who changed the BOD 2 yrs ago. GLTAHs
MLM Price at posting:
3.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
