Explorer and project incubator Castle Minerals (ASX:CDT) reports it has completed a reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign at its Kambale Graphite Project in Ghana, West Africa.
The 30-hole 2,290m RC program was conducted to better define ‘high-grade’ zones that were interpreted by a previous round of drilling, as well as facilitate a maiden JORC 2012 compliant Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE).
The company reports that the campaign was fast-tracked due to its geological team and contracted drilling crew continuing work operations throughout the Christmas period.
Addressing the completion of drilling, Castle Minerals Managing Director, Stephen Stone says: “It’s been a very busy Christmas and a great start to 2023 with the completion at the Kambale Graphite Project in Ghana of a 30-hole, 2,290m RC drilling program and the arrival this week in Perth of 300kg of diamond drill core samples for phase two metallurgical testwork that will commence in coming days.
“It’s been a very busy Christmas and a great start to 2023 with the completion at the Kambale Graphite Project in Ghana of a 30-hole, 2,290m RC drilling program…”
With Castle also having interests in several other active battery metals projects, base metals and gold projects shareholders can look forward to a busy and exciting 2023.”
The company also notes that the completion of drilling at Kambale comes following the completion of a prior 52-hole RC drilling campaign which extended the deposit’s footprint to 2.5km north-south over a combined width of up to 0.5km and returned thick, multiple graphitic zones such as 14m at 8.1% Total Graphitic Carbon (TGC) from 47m (22CKRC052).
In addition, 300kg of half core samples from a 4-hole diamond drilling program are reported to have arrived in the Western Australian capital city of Perth and are expected to be utilised for phase two metallurgical testwork in order to assess the amenability of the graphitic schist.
It is hoped that this metallurgical test work will produce a fine flake graphite concentrate as a base for electric vehicle (EV) battery anode manufacture, before being assessed by a specialist European metallurgical laboratory to be processed into the battery-grade fine flake concentrate.
As of 11am AWST Castle Minerals’ share price had increased by 9.52%.
Castle Minerals is an active ASX-listed exploration company that is currently exploring a portfolio of projects within Western Australia and the West African nation of Ghana. The company’s emerging Kambale tenement is located in the country’s Upper West region, which encompasses large tracts of highly prospective Birimian geological terrain. This area is known to be host to many of West Africa’s and Ghana’s multi-million-ounce gold mines.
With the recent RC drilling campaign now complete, Castle Minerals announces that its planned MRE is scheduled for delivery at the end of Q1 2023, subject to timing of receipt of assay results.
A developing scoping study is also being considered by the company for Q2 2023, however this is subject to the success of testwork, definition of the MRE and other related studies.
Images: Castle Minerals Limited
