IRON hopeful Polaris Metals’ stock soared almost 18% in intra-day trade on wide high-grade hematite iron intersections from its Carina prospect, part of the Yilgarn Iron Ore project north of Koolyanobbing in Western Australia.
Shares in Perth-based Polaris leapt 10c or 18% from 56c to 66c in intra-day trade before cooling to close at 55c.
Better intersections from the reverse circulation drilling program that began at Carina in December last year include 112m at 58.13% iron ore from surface, 42m at 59.6% iron ore from 102m, and 56m at 59.5% iron ore from 76m.
Polaris managing director Jonathan Lea told MiningNews.net the latest results confirm the prospectivity of Carina and its potential to be mined in the foreseeable future, with the added advantage of being situated out of the proposed Mt Manning Class-A reserve extension.
“The results are very encouraging, the grade is good, and the key aspect is the proximity to infrastructure, which gives us a realistic opportunity to get into production in the foreseeable future,” Lea said.
“We still need to conduct more drilling to assess the dimensions and prove up an orebody in the next three to four months.”
Lea added he was hopeful of a potential mine life of up to eight years.
The latest results had made the Carina deposit the company’s focus, Lea said, but Polaris had six other targets it was exploring within the Yilgarn iron ore project, with further assays expected imminently.
“I would think there are a number of prospects surrounding that can add to that resource base, with the biggest single deposit being Bungalbin East, which was drilled by BHP Billiton in the 1960s,” Lea said.
Bungalbin has a historical resource of about 60 million tonnes, but it needs to be redrilled to classify it at today’s JORC-compliant standard, according to Lea.
He stated Polaris was hopeful that Carina, combined with Bungalbin and the other prospects, would give the company a resource in excess of 100 million tonnes.
Lea also noted that Carina had a key advantage in being close to infrastructure, which would enable Polaris to accelerate project development, with the company anticipating first output from Carina by mid 2010.
“Carina is only about 50 kilometres north of the main east-west railway line, so we would be looking at building a spur line or an ore road down to that line and loading the material on to the trains there, and we are in discussions with WestNet Rail.
“We are also in discussions with the Port of Fremantle and we are looking at exporting ore through Kwinana, and it is a reasonable expectation to assume that we can export through Kwinana without any major issues.”
Polaris is in discussions with a number of interested Chinese parties over any potential offtake agreements, Lea said.
He added that the company’s major shareholder, an unnamed Singaporean steel producer, has also indicated its interest in possible offtake contracts.
Despite having no official offtake agreement in place, Lea told MNn that Polaris would negotiate the “best possible” price for its ore to maximise shareholder returns.
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POL Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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