Image Resources extends Boonanarring heavy mineral Resource

/in /by

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Image Resources (ASX: IMA) has delivered a higher grade resource extension at the Boonanarring heavy mineral (HM) deposit, located 90km north of Perth, which forms part of the company’s North Perth Basin mineral sands project.
 
Image said recent drilling has confirmed an extension of the Boonanarring deposit resulting in an additional JORC Indicated Resource at Block A of:

–    1.36 million tonnes at 18.2 per cent HM , containing 243,000 tonnes of HM at a 2.5 per cent HM cut-off.

An additional Inferred Resource of 750,000 tonnes at 10.6 per cent HM containing 79,000 tonnes of HM has also been defined.

Image indicated that at 15.4 per cent HM, the overall resource in Block A is double the HM grade of the previously released resources for Blocks B, C and D, which average 7.5 per cent HM at the same cut-off.

The company claims grades for Blocks B, C and D are already higher than most mineral sand deposits.

Image said Block A also has encouraging zircon credits, with zircon grade averaging 25.9 per cent of the HM, compared to an average of 19.6 per cent for Blocks B, C and D.

 

Boonanarring exploration targets and drilling April 2013. Source: Company announcement

 

“Given Image’s track record to date in converting early ground magnetics results into high-grade mineral sands JORC resources, this result is not unexpected,” Image Resources managing director Peter Davies said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

However, the grade of the JORC resources in Block A is far higher than we predicted and this adds further to our confidence in the potential of the Boonanarring project. ”

This discovery brings the currently defined Boonanarring total JORC Resources to:

–    20.9 million tonnes at 8.3 per cent HM containing 1.7 million tonnes of HM at a 2.5 per cent HM cut-off.

The company considers the average 85 per cent Valuable Heavy Mineral (VHM) content of the HM to be a highly-positive attribute for the resource, as it increases the overall Boonanarring VHM content to 79 per cent of the HM.

“It is also encouraging to see the expansion of the exploration efforts into areas of Bidaminna and north of Boonanarring which have potential to add significantly to the company’s resources portfolio” Davies said.