Accelerate Resources Poised to Drill Manganese Project
THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Accelerate Resources (ASX: AX8) announced recent mapping has confirmed the discovery of two large, mineralised manganese corridors at the Woodie Woodie North project, ahead of managing director Yaxi Zhan’s presentation to the 2023 RIU Explorers Conference today. By Ngaire McDiarmid
The new corridors represented “persistently mineralised trends” analogous to the mineralisation at the Area 42 discovery and were extensions of the world class Woodie Woodie mine corridor, Accelerate said.
Zhan told Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines that the news was quite significant and indicated the potential for a large-scale deposit at Woodie Woodie North.
The project, consolidated exactly 12 months ago, is about 70km from the long-life Woodie Woodie manganese mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara.
Recent drilling at Area 42 confirmed the presence of large and well-developed hydrothermal “Woodie Woodie style” zones, Zhan said.
Results included 1m at 50.8 per cent manganese from 1m, within 5m at 33.7 per cent from surface.
The company is planning to start an aggressive drilling program in April ahead of a maiden resource expected before year-end, Zhan said.
“Today’s announcement basically demonstrates that we can potentially … duplicate the success that we’ve had at Area 42 to all the other corridors,” she said.
Accelerate is aiming to become the next Australian manganese producer.
Zhan said manganese was a critical mineral, irreplaceable in steel production and increasingly in demand for the growing battery and renewable technologies sector.