High-grade graphite hits continue to cascade in for International Graphite from its Springdale project near Hopetoun on Western Australia’s south coast, where the company has etched out four new discoveries surrounding its existing mineral resource.
Management has revealed highlights that include 18m averaging 12.2 per cent total graphitic carbon (TGC) from 82m, which included a 3m intercept of 20.8 per cent TGC.
Other notable hits include 13m running at 10.8 per cent TGC from only 49m, with 3m grading an impressive 25.8 per cent TGC, in addition to 13m going 12.5 per cent from 61m downhole and containing a 5m hit at 24.22 per cent TGC.
The company’s latest haul comes from 44 holes in a 3700m campaign of reverse-circulation (RC) drilling for a total of 47 holes that perforated the recently-discovered Springdale Central prospect. Impressively, all 44 holes hit significant graphite mineralisation along a 1km strike and management says it remains open in all directions.
The drilling operations at Springdale Central follow closely on the back of International Graphite’s recent success at its Mason Bay prospect, about 2km to the north-east where the drillbit latched onto an 11m hit grading 18 per cent TGC from 28m, including a 4m intercept at an impressive 23.9 per cent TGC. Additional wider hits included 25m at 11.4 per cent TGC from 68m and 23m going 8.7 per cent TGC from 77m.
Springdale Central and Mason Bay are just two of a quartet of recent discoveries at International Graphite’s greater Springdale project that boasts an inferred resource of more than 15 million tonnes with a TGC of 6 per cent. Notably, the project houses an even higher-grade 2.6-million-tonne inferred resource running at a grade of 17.5 per cent TGC.
Management notes that a series of intriguing aeromagnetic anomalies identified by previous owners over the 168-square-kilometre tenure also remain untested. The company has sunk more than 20,000m at Springdale since June last year, including 12 diamond and 261 RC holes, in a bid to increase its current mineral resource estimate, with an update expected early next quarter.
"Over 10,000m of drilling has been completed at Central and Mason Bay alone and covers an area that is approximately half the size of the area of the existing Springdale JORC mineral resource. Extensive areas of additional exploration targets remain untested at Mason Bay and elsewhere within the Springdale tenements and are earmarked for future exploration activities. Our successful exploration program in the past year is demonstrating Springdale is presenting the potential to host a deposit of industry significance". International Graphite managing director and chief executive officer Andrew Worland
The company is looking to stake a claim as the State’s first “mine-to-market” producer of battery anode graphite, treating the material sourced from Springdale at its downstream processing plant in Collie, about 450km from the deposit. The plant is earmarked to churn out about 4000 tonnes a year of micronised graphite – an ultrafine material used in the production of lithium-ion batteries for the electric vehicle market.
Buoyed by Federal Government backing to the tune of $4.7 million through the Critical Minerals Development Program, International Graphite is now working to fast-track its integrated mine-to-market graphite supply chain strategy.
The company has been moving ahead at a fair clip since listing on the ASX in April last year. With a pilot plant in Collie already producing micronised and spheroidised graphite, a suite of new discoveries at its Springdale project, a drilling blitz under its belt and a fresh mineral resource estimate scheduled for release by the end of the year, the company is edging ever-closer to that ambitious “mine-to-market” goal.
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