Canadian company Titan Mining has completed its maiden mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the Kilbourne graphite project in Gouverneur, New York, US.
The project is situated within the Empire State Mine’s (ESM) permit boundary in St Lawrence County.
The open-pit constrained inferred resource is estimated at 22 million US short tonnes at an average grade of 2.91% graphite, containing 653,000t of graphite, based on a cut-off grade of 1.50%.
The estimate follows phase one drilling, which consisted of 45 diamond drill-holes and totalled 29,699ft.
This drilling and MRE represent only a fraction of the total graphite-bearing unit, which has been identified through surface mapping and historical drilling. The current estimate is based on a 7,000ft strike length, part of a larger 25,000ft strike length, suggesting potential for resource expansion.
Titan Mining is aiming to fast-track the Kilbourne project to commercial production, leveraging the existing infrastructure and operational talent at the ESM. This move is intended to secure a preferred US domestic supply chain for graphite.
Titan Mining CEO Don Taylor said: “The maiden mineral resource estimate at Kilbourne is an excellent result based on limited Phase I drilling and confirms the prospect of a long-life, open-pit, graphite operation at ESM. There remains significant potential to expand the mineral resource estimate within the ESM mineral tenure, to potentially fully meet US domestic needs, and to secure our supply chain.
“Kilbourne is located less than 4,000ft from the existing ESM mill and infrastructure. With significant operational synergies, Titan is targeting being the first US commercial producer of natural flake graphite delivering to a broad spectrum of US-based customers.”
The company anticipates producing concentrate from a commercial demonstration plant within the ESM mill in 2025, marking the first such facility in full run-time in the US.
Preparations for an NI 43-101 preliminary economic assessment for the Kilbourne graphite project will commence in early 2025.
Phase one drilling tested approximately 8,250ft of the Kilbourne strike length, with more than 15,000ft of additional Unit 2 strike length held by the company. To date, only around 30% of the Kilbourne trend has been drilled, with further exploration planned to test these extensions.
Additionally, Titan Mining is planning phase two drilling at Kilbourne, set to begin in the first half of 2025. The goal is to upgrade the resource confidence from inferred to measured/indicated status and to extend high-grade mineralisation zones.
Metallurgical test work is currently under way at SGS Lakefield laboratory in Canada.
The phase three test programme at SGS Lakefield aims to de-risk metallurgy by defining a flowsheet for the commercial demonstration plant. The data from this work will contribute to the development of the mass and water balance, process design criteria and process flow diagram, with completion expected by the end of Q4 2024.
