Pioneer Resources Claims Discovery of Microcline in Deposit Overburden

THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Pioneer Resources (ASX: PIO) announced the discovery of a potassium feldspar (microcline) deposit. By Jack Baker

Pioneer Resources claimed the discovery from results of two diamond core holes drilled in the company’s 100 per cent-owned Sinclair Zone caesium deposit in Western Australia.

Pioneer discovered the microcline dominating the caesium deposit’s overburden while moving towards open pit operations for extracting the constrained and high value mineral pollucite.

“The point of the drilling was to quantify very precisely the pollucite, that’s the high value product,” Pioneer Resources managing director David Crook told The Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines at the RIU Explorers Conference.

“Geologically that looks like it’s behaving itself and we’re gaining a lot more knowledge of the pegmatite that coexists with it and the microcline is just a bonus.

“Prior to us realising it was microcline we thought the overburden was waste. That was what we were going to mine and now all of that is a saleable product.”

Pioneer said the deposit was discovered using the low-iron sample preparation technique required for the microcline analysis.

Of the 82 samples submitted from the 2 drill holes, 61 have returned analyses consistent with a published A-grade Microcline specification.

The company also believed it was noteworthy that microcline has been recorded in over 30 drill holes of the Sinclair Zone pit but had yet to be analysed using the low-iron sample preparation technique.

Pioneer’s core focus is to advance the Sinclair Zone Caesium deposit towards development.

Crook said the company aims to proceed with open-pit mining operations to extract the product in mid-2018.

 

Email: info@pioresources.com.au

Website: www.pioresources.com.au