Hi
@subi1I remember that there was a map that showed the location of the Railway deposit so looked into the old ALK releases and finally found it
https://investors.alkane.com.au/site/PDF/17c1a378-16f7-4c61-81d7-afe7ac1ee080/DubboZirconiaProjectOreReserveUpgradeAs you say very little drilling has been done to date. The off quoted 50 - 75 year mine life only referred to the Toongi deposit and does not include the potential of the Railway deposit.
There was this comment from a 2012 quarterly
"
Resource DevelopmentEarlier this year a reconnaissance RC drilling program was completed to assess the thickness and
nature of trachyte at the Railway Prospect, located 4 kilometres north-west of the main Toongi orebody.
The drilling comprised 7 RC drill holes totalling 492 metres scattered across the trachyte outcrop (see
ASX Announcement 27 June 2012).
Drilling identified a broadly subhorizontal sheet of trachyte flows, unconformable over sediments of the
Triassic aged Napperby Formation. The results of the RC holes are summarised in Table 1. Like the
main Toongi orebody, the Railway trachyte displays remarkable continuity of zirconium, niobium, yttrium
and rare earth grades laterally and vertically. The total length weighted average grade of all drilling is:
0.912% ZrO2, 0.022% HfO2, 0.237% Nb2O5, 0.014% Ta2O5, 0.073% Y2O3, 0.343% REO (TREO 0.42%)
Overall the metal grades reported are approximately 50% the average grade within the Toongi body but
the light rare earth elements (LREE) to heavy rare earth elements (HREE) distribution is approximately
70% to 30% for Railway against 75% to 25% for Toongi.
Based on the outcrop surface area, the depth to the base of the trachyte and assuming near vertical
sides the exploration target for the Railway Trachyte is 35 to 45 million tonnes using the specific
gravity determined from measurements of the Toongi deposit, and at a grade that ranges from 0.85% to
0.99% ZrO2, 0.21% to 0.23% HfO2, 0.21% to 0.26% Nb2O5, 0.013% to 0.15% Ta2O5 and 0.43% to
0.48% TREO (Y203 + REO).
The potential quantity and grade are conceptual in nature, and there has been insufficient exploration to
define a Mineral Resource and it is uncertain that further exploration will result in the determination of a
Mineral Resource.
Combined with existing defined resources within the Toongi ore body of 73.4 Mt (see attached
resource/reserve statement) the Railway prospect could add to the long term production from the project."
Very surprised by the large jump in the price of ASM. One thought I had was someone pushed up the price to sell ASM in the hope of buying into ALK if the trading halt release is very positive.
Such large price jumps make me nervous, not complaining but would like to understand the sudden rush to buy. I suppose one way to look at it is that the market has finally worked out the value the Koreans value just the DZP and talking in pre demerger terms the price is now only equivalent to around $2.00 if still held in ALK.
Information is due in the next month or so on the progress on the meeting of the First Stage Conditions for the $US250m framework agreement with South Korean consortium for 20%, as well as the completion of the optimisation study for the Dubbo Project. With a bit of luck maybe some update on the KMP progress and some progress on metallization plants in other locations.
Very curious to see the price action on Monday GLTA
(20min delay)
