News: Broken Hill Prospecting inks maiden high grade minerals sands resource

Broken Hill Prospecting (ASX:BPL) has defined an attractive maiden Mineral resource of 11.6 million tonnes at 6.9% for its Copi North Heavy Mineral Sands Deposit in the Murray Basin, New South Wales.

The Murray Basin is a globally significant Heavy Mineral Sand region with current resources valued at over US$200B.

Bullishly, today's resource estimate is nearly twice the reported head grades of nearby operating heavy mineral sands mines of between 3.5% and 4% heavy minerals.

Nearby operations include Iluka Resources’ (ASX:ILU) Douglas deposits as well as Cristal Mining’s Ginkgo and Snapper mines. These mines produced 163,479 tonnes of ilmenite and yielded sales revenues of $A310 million during 2013 providing a pathway to value accretion for Broken Hill Prospecting.

The Copi North Resource occurs at shallow depths averaging about 23 metres under friable sand, silt and clay. It includes an Indicated Resource of 7 million tonnes at 6.9%.

It has low slime content that may help maximise heavy mineral recovery while the limited groundwater could support lower capital cost, dry, open-cut mining using a small and mobile plant.

There is potential to extend deposit strike length to up to 30 kilometres from 10 kilometres, increasing resources.

Scoping and pre-feasibility studies on Copi North HMS Deposit are expected to be completed in late 2015.

The deposit could become one of the lowest cost quartile of producers on present trends.

In addition, a maiden resource estimate for the Magic HMS deposit is anticipated in August.

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