Petratherm drilling brings out beauty of Rosewood as potential world-class titanium discovery

Petratherm drilling intersects titanium-rich heavy mineral sands across 15km2 area at Rosewood
Mineralisation remains open to the north, east and west with holes ending in strong mineralisation
Further drilling to test for further extensions and obtain bulk samples

Special Report: Petratherm is putting more shine on its Muckanippie heavy mineral sands project in South Australia after drilling returned titanium-rich intersections at the Rosewood prospect.

Results from the 45 holes drilled at the prospect confirmed that titanium-rich heavy mineral sands are present over an area of at least 15km2.

Notable results from this drilling are:

28m grading 13.6% HM from 10m including 8m at 26.3% HM from 29m (24RW019)
25m at 7.1% HM from 8m including 5m at 16.6% HM from 28m (24RW005); and
16m at 12.1% HM from 14m including 8m at 19.6% HM from 15m (24RW036).

This adds to results from the first five holes, which returned exceptional results including 22m at 19.1% HM from 8m in hole 24RW020.

Petratherm (ASX:PTR) notes that mineralisation is open to the north in all drill traverses, as well as to the west and east with some of the most significant intercepts occurring at the end of the current drill traverses.

What’s particularly valuable is that mineralogy results to date have indicated that Rosewood HM sands have on average >95% valuable HM content which is composed primarily of high value titanium minerals such as rutile and pseudorutile.

Natural rutile is regarded as supply constrained, meaning customers will be keen to suck up additional supply – at a premium – as it emerges.

It certainly helps that titanium has been listed as a critical mineral in Australia, the US and Europe.

Rosewood drilling results. Pic: Petratherm

Large-scale potential

“These results confirm exceptional heavy mineral grade continuity and thickness over a very large area,” chief executive officer Peter Reid said.

“Encouraging thick, high-grade mineralisation occurs right up to the extents of current drilling and we look forward to step out exploration drilling in the coming weeks, especially to the north, which has significant potential for additional mineralisation.

“We have now strengthened our confidence of Rosewood’s large-scale potential and as a result this next round of exploration drilling will include in parallel the collection of bulk heavy mineral sample to expedite initial trial mineral separation testing using standard ore processing techniques.

“This work will investigate ore recoveries and ore products for potential sale.”

Muckanippie drilling

PTR embarked on a 100-hole program totalling 3392m in October 2024 to test for titanium-bearing HM mineralisation.

Half of these holes targeted the Rosewood prospect to extend mineralisation from the southern edge, where it outcrops in places, northwards where it extends under very thin cover.

All 50 holes intersected the target host sediments, a silt, sand and clay rich sequence, with 90% returning assays of at least 5m at >5% HM.

Mineralisation remains open towards the north, west and east with results indicating that it remains thick with high-grades.

Next steps

PTR will continue a mineralogical and metallurgical assessment at Rosewood using existing HM concentrates to undertake benchtop and small-scale HM recovery investigations.

These will include magnetic and electrostatic separation of HM concentrates, similar to those used in existing HM mining operations, to determine which titanium oxides products can be produced for further marketing and evaluation.

It also plans to carry out further drilling at Rosewood to test for further extensions of known HM mineralisation and obtain bulk samples for large-scale metallurgical test work.

This further drilling is expected to start in about four weeks’ time.

Assays are also expected within two weeks from Muckanippie drilling testing saprolite zones (weathered basement reduced to clays) over areas of primary titanium-bearing rocks.

This article was developed in collaboration with Petratherm, 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.