Lincoln Minerals announces Kookaburra Gully graphite Resource
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Lincoln Minerals (ASX: LML) has announced a maiden high-grade JORC Code-compliant Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources for the company’s wholly-owned Kookaburra Gully graphite project, located on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
The total Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources for Kookaburra Gully project have been calculated at 2.25 million tonnes grading 15 per cent total graphitic carbon (TGC) with 338,000 tonnes of contained graphite at a nominal cut-off grade of 5 per cent TGC.
“The maiden JORC Code-compliant Mineral Resources at Kookaburra Gully reinforce Lincoln’s confidence in being able to quickly progress the company’s graphite resources on southern Eyre Peninsula into a high-quality, long-life graphite mining and processing operation,” Lincoln Minerals managing director Dr John Parker said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“Drilling the Kookaburra Gully graphite project and defining over two million tonnes of mineralisation at 15 per cent TGC in this timeframe has been a fantastic result for Lincoln.”
Lincoln Minerals provided a comparison of the Kookaburra Gully project to northern hemisphere graphite projects, which it said report resources at a grade of around 2 per cent TGC saying the company resource excludes material below that grade.
The company previously announced a total Exploration Target for graphite prospects in the Kookaburra Gully following an EM survey area, which included extending Kookaburra Gully and the historic Koppio graphite mine.
Project location. Source: Company announcement
The Exploration Target was estimated to be between about 14.2 million tonnes to 42.6 million tonnes and was based on an estimated average grade in the range of 7 to 15 per cent TGC.
Lincoln explained the estimate was based on a depth extent of only 50m, however a drilling campaign carried out in January 2013 at the Kookaburra Gully site demonstrated this is likely to be a conservative estimate of what the company could be sitting on.
The company displayed its confidence in the project by claiming it to be ranked in the top 10 graphite deposits in the world in terms of the average grade of its in situ graphitic carbon content.
“The Kookaburra Gully graphite resource we have defined today is important because it only reflects information taken from 500 metres of strike,” Parker said.
“We have not drilled further south yet. Lincoln is very optimistic that drilling planned for Kookaburra Gully Extended this year will define further graphite resources.”
Lincoln Minerals has completed preliminary metallurgical studies and a scoping study for Kookaburra Gully, the results of which indicate the company will be able to produce high-quality flake graphite (greater than 95 per cent TGC).
The company anticipates its graphite mining and processing program will be globally competitive as the resource can be mined from a small open pit mine or quarry with low strip ratios.
“We are on track for a pilot-scale operation by the end of 2013, subject to finance and approvals, and we are planning to pursue full mining, production and processing of graphite through 2014,” Parker said.