Sheffield announces Inferred Resource

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Bulk minerals explorer Sheffield Resources has announced an Inferred Resource for its Ellengail heavy mineral sand (HMS) project, located seven kilometres west of Eneabba in the mid-west region of Western Australia.

The Inferred Resource measure 46.45 million tonnes at 2.2 per cent heavy minerals for 1.040 million tonnes of contained heavy minerals, including an Inferred Resource for the high grade core to the deposit of 11.25 million tonnes at 5.0 per cent heavy minerals for 560,000 tonnes of contained heavy minerals.

“The Ellengail resource is an important milestone in Sheffield’s near-term strategy to build a significant mineral sands resource base in the North Perth Basin,” Sheffiled Resources managing director Bruce McQuitty said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
 
“We have a large pipeline of mineral sand projects queued for exploration and evaluation work.

“The West Mine North deposit, located just three kilometres south of Ellengail, is scheduled for resource estimation work next, followed by the large McCalls deposit.”

Sheffield Resources purchased the Ellengail and West Mine North projects from Iluka just 10 months ago.

Iluka retains a 1.5 per cent royalty in the project.

Sheffield described Ellengail to be typical of the Eneabba deposits mined in the region for many years.

The project has a high value assemblage of 83 per cent valuable heavy mineral, comprising 8.9 per cent zircon, 8.7 per cent rutile, 63.5 per cent ilmenite and 1.9 per cent leucoxene.

The Ellengail resource estimate is based entirely on historic drilling by Iluka Resource and RGC, which completed close-spaced drilling on the deposit.

Sheffield said it plans to complete further drilling at Ellengail in 2012 to allow a higher confidence resource category to be applied.