Centaurus Metals encouraged by convivial drill results from Canavial project

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Centaurus Metals (ASX: CTM) has received encouraging drilling results from the company’s 100 per cent-owned Canavial iron ore project, located 10 kilometres from its Jambreiro iron ore project in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

The company said the results have supported the positive initial results it achieved from its maiden drilling program in 2011 while laying the foundations for a maiden JORC resource estimate.
 
Centaurus said the latest drilling had also added to the emerging potential the Canavial project has displayed as an additional source of friable itabirite feed for the Jambreiro project, where development is scheduled to commence later this year.

Centaurus is now aiming to complete a maiden JORC resource for Canavial by May this year.
 
Highlights of the recent RC drilling results include:

–    37 metres at 41.9 per cent iron, 7.2 per cent aluminium oxide and 0.05 per cent phosphorous from surface;

–    23m at 42 per cent iron, 10.2 per cent aluminium oxide and 0.07 per cent phosphorous from surface;

–    12m at 40.3 per cent iron, 5.5 per cent aluminium oxide and 0.06 per cent phosphorous from 17m; and

–    19m at 29.0 per cent iron, 4.6 per cent aluminium oxide and 0.07 per cent phosphorous from 69m.

 

Canavial iron ore project – schematic cross section. Source: Company announcement

 

“We are pleased with these early drill results from the Canavial project,” Centaurus Metals managing director Darren Gordon said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“To have a potential source of additional friable itabirite feed only 10 kilometres from the Jambreiro plant site has obvious advantages to the company as we look to grow the business.

“We are committed to steady but continuous exploration and development of the region, and to increasing our resource base to underpin extensions to the current 9-year friable ore mine life of the Jambreiro project.”

Centaurus indicated the nature of the mineralisation it has identified at surface and in RC chips at the Canavial project is, for the most part, the same as that at Jambreiro.

Because of this the company said it anticipates the Canavial mineralisation will be amenable to beneficiation to produce a high-grade, low impurity product in a similar way to Jambreiro.
 
Beneficiation test work using the Jambreiro flowsheet design is underway.
 
Centaurus delivered a positive Bankable Feasibility Study on the Jambreiro project in November 2012, outlining a robust 2 million tonnes per annum project capable of generating revenues of $836 million and EBITDA of $545 million over an initial nine-year life.
 
The company has since commenced initial development activities and is progressing appropriate licensing process in line with the established schedule to enable site works to commence in Q2 2013.