BlackEarth Minerals (ASX: BEM) has reported ‘outstanding’ initial assay results from diamond drilling at the Razafy NW prospect within its Maniry Graphite Project in Madagascar.
The results, taken from a 1,670m followup campaign, have delivered a number of highlight intercepts including:
- Hole MNDD110: 15.9m @ 14.5% TGC
- Hole MNDD111: 27.2m @ 12.5% TGC + 8.6m @ 12.8% TGC
- Hole MNDD112: 6.7m @ 10.7% TGC
The company notes that these grades have generally verified continuity of graphite mineralisation encountered during an earlier drill campaign in 2021.
Speaking on the update, BlackEarth Minerals Managing Director Tom Revy said “We’re very pleased with these outstanding, initial Assay Results and we look forward to receiving additional data over the next few weeks.
“These results are the culmination of a range of exploration activities we’ve undertaken at our Maniry Projects over the last year and they further validate the high quality of our expanding graphite resources”
These results are the culmination of a range of exploration activities we’ve undertaken at our Maniry Projects over the last year and they further validate the high quality of our expanding graphite resources. We have focused on resource expansion by size and grade over the last year and this has been achieved with even further upgrades to our mineral resource expected in the short term.
These results also provide two major benefits to us –
Firstly, The additional resource grades and tonnages will be implemented in to our DFS study which should provide a substantial and material increase to our projected mine life and overall project economics and, secondly, our robust project economics and early stage mine development plans position us well to further develop our relationships with existing and proposed, new down-stream processing ventures as we push forward with our commitment to become a major contributor of material to the battery power and electric vehicle markets”.
Interestingly, BlackEarth has verified that assayed graphite grades generally line up with visually-logged grades, with the latter providing a similar but conservative estimate.
Results from this campaign are expected to improve geological confidence moving into the next Mineral Resource Estimate, with further assays expected in the coming weeks.
Map of the Maniry Graphite Project area, highlighting the Razafy NW prospect. Image: BlackEarth Minerals NLThe 100%-owned Maniry Graphite Project is situated in Southern Madagascar and is host to a current Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 20.2Mt @ 6.51% Graphitic Carbon.
A recently-announced infrastructure spending deal between the Madagascan Government and the World Bank will see major upgrades along a 400km stretch of road that connects the project to a key export port at Tolagnaro.
