Armadale Capital (LON: ACP) reported this week that a final diamond drilling campaign at the Mahenge Liandu graphite project in Tanzania confirmed high-grade near surface mineralisation.
In a press release, the company said the campaign yielded high-grade, near surface intercepts recorded as 5m @ 19.8% total graphite content from 1m; 14m @ 14.3% TGC from 22m; 8m @ 15.3% TGC from 7m; and 7m @ 16.2% TGC from 22m.
Prior to drilling, a scoping study showed that Mahenge Liandu could produce a coarse flake, high-purity graphite product
“Combined with the recently announced reverse circulation drilling results, the geological team is confident that it now has sufficient data points to fully define a JORC compliant Mineral Resource update,” the media brief reads. “Importantly, the resource update will underpin an initial 10-15 year mine life, in respect of only 25-30% of the mineralised ground tested by drilling and incorporated within the resource.”
According to Armadale, an existing JORC compliant indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate for the project, which was announced back in February 2018, stands at 51.1Mt at 9.3% TGC, including 38.7Mt Indicated at 9.3% and 12.4Mt at 9.1% TGC.
Mahenge Liandu is located in south-east Tanzania. Currently, Armadale is completing a Definitive Feasibility Study based on the results of a scoping study that was completed in March 2018 and that was based on a throughput of 400,000tpa over a 32-year mine life. The study verified that the project could produce a coarse flake, high-purity graphite product.