Arunta Resources identifies tungsten at Hatches Creek
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Arunta Resources Limited (ASX: AJR) has received results of a recently sampling program undertaken at the company’s Hatches Creek tungsten project, located north-east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
According to Arunta the sampling has confirmed the presence of high-grade material located within and adjacent to areas that were subjected to historic mining activity.
Prospect location map. Source: Company announcement
Results of the first round metallurgical test work completed on bulk and grab samples of mullock, eluvial and alluvial material and selected lode material collected at Hatches Creek include:
An average grade of 0.73 per cent tungsten from samples taken from historical mine waste dumps, with individual samples grading up to 1.385 per cent tungsten and 1.034 per cent tungsten;
An average grade of 13.41 per cent tungsten from selected rock chips from lode (quartz) in dumps, with individual samples grading up to 38.357 per cent tungsten; and
Eluvial samples from The Black and Green Diamond groups returned the highest and most consistent results averaging 0.11 per cent tungsten per tonne with a peak value of 0.45 per cent tungsten per tonne.
“Hatches Creek was a very rich, high-grade tungsten mine which produced tungsten concentrates worth around $100 million at today’s prices, and may well have been one of the highest grade tungsten mines in the Western World,” Arunta Resources executive chairman Neil Biddle said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“Our recent site visit has confirmed that a significant amount of high-grade material remains in mine waste dumps, mullock dumps and alluvial and eluvial deposits on site, with significant potential to delineate deeper material with drilling.
“This is a very encouraging development and provides us with an exciting opportunity to fast-track the Hatches Creek project to take advantage of the current strong market and outlook for tungsten concentrates.
“We intend to move ahead immediately with the next phase of activity at Hatches Creek, which includes metallurgical testwork and further field work to confirm the extent of the material available on site to support a potential near-term production start-up.”
Email: info@aruntaresources.com.au
Website: www.aruntaresources.com.au