Mineral Commodities has reinforced its Trælen mine’s position as one of the world’s highest grade operating flake graphite mines with drilling returning up to 44.5% TGC.

The top hit of 5m at 44.5% total graphitic carbon (TGC) from 81m within a broader 27.7m zone grading 35.6% TGC from 63.2m is just one of a multitude of high-grade intersections from its down dip resource diamond drilling program.

Importantly, the infill and step-out drilling has confirmed the continuity of the high-grade Trælen mineralisation along strike and highlighted the potential to upgrade the resource tonnage and classification.

A maiden JORC resource of 1.78 million tonnes grading 22% TGC was estimated in March 2020 for the Trælen deposit.

Mineral Commodities (ASX:MRC) has completed 14 holes totalling 2,315m, or about 71% of the planned 3,000m program to date and expects to deliver an updated resource before the end of the current quarter.

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View of long section of Traelen Graphite Mine showing assay results from diamond drilling in down dip. Pic: Supplied

“These drilling results confirm that the very high-grade graphite mineralisation at Trælen continues along strike, down dip of historical mining operations,” acting chief executive officer Russell Tipper said.

“We are looking forward to an upgraded mineral resource estimate, targeting an upgrade to the current resource, as well as Skaland’s first ore reserve estimate after the drilling campaign is completed.

“Skaland continues to be the foundation of MRC’s graphite operations and we look forward to evaluating expansion options for it to support European decarbonisation and mobility electrification.”

The company recently started down-dip mining for the first time in the mine’s operational history to provide access to additional graphite while enabling further exploration and infill drilling.

Graphite drilling

The drilling started in March 2021 with a focus on resource expansion down-dip and has to date returned results such as 26.3m at 38.2%TGC from 151m including 11.7m at 41.5% TGC from 153m, 16.8m at 35.3% TGC from 80m including 5.5m at 40.7% TGC from 89m, and 15.7m at 30.6% TGC from 99.9m.

Mineralisation is observed to be increasing in grade when compared to historically mined up-dip levels and graphite flake size is reported as medium to large.

Drilling has also confirmed Trælen to be a continuous steep, west-northwest dipping ore body with the mineralised horizon isoclinally folded.

MRC  adds that the thickest, most continuous mineralisation occurs as lens-shaped bodies that are oriented parallel to the main fold axis.

This horizon contains economically interesting instances of graphite, with drilling from this program intersecting ore zones up to 27m wide.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Mineral Commodities, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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