PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Metals Australia has reported a maiden Joint Ore Reserves Committee resource of 13.3-million tonnes, grading 11.5% total graphitic carbon, for 1.52-million tonnes of contained graphite at its Lac Rainy graphite project, in Quebec.
Metals Australia told shareholders that the mineral resource at Lac Rainy offered significant flexibility for potential development into a long life, high-grade graphite mining operation, and had the potential to be mined using opencut mining methods, with low strip ratios.
More than 90% of the current global resource is located within the first 100 m of the deposit.
“The delivery of the maiden resource estimate at Lac Rainy signifies the culmination of our significant exploration efforts over the last 18 months. When we acquired Lac Rainy, it was a greenfield exploration project. Today, Lac Rainy possesses a significant high-grade resource which remains open along strike as well as down dip and plunge, indicating significant exploration upside,” said Metals Australia director Gino D’Anna.
“Our resource is readily and rapidly expandable. We demonstrated that through the discovery of the West Carheil graphitic trend, which has a similar genesis as the Main Cargheil graphitic trend. The Lac Rainy project offers significant flexibility, it has projected low strip ratios, can be readily accessed through openpcut mining methods and has consistently delivered exceptionally high-grade results.”
Metals Australia is planning to start its first round of product specification test work, and is hoping to deliver a scoping study on the project by late 2020.
