Recent widespread, high-grade graphite intersections are expected to support an improved and accelerated mining schedule at Renascor’s Siviour deposit in South Australia.

Notable results received to date are 28m grading 8.2% total graphitic carbon from a depth of 82m, 25m at 8.4% TGC from 77m including 18m at 10% TGC from 84m, and 31m at 7% TGC from 100m.

While Siviour already has the second largest graphite reserve outside Africa, Renascor (ASX:RNU) expects the drilling to support an increase in the confidence level of the project’s resource and potentially increase the scale of its Ore Reserve.

Results from the drilling, which was focused on areas within the Inferred resource zones, will be incorporated into a revised pit design and mining schedule as part of the company’s optimised Battery Anode Material Study, which could reduce mining costs while increasing the volume of graphitic ore mined.

This comes amidst continued strength in graphite pricing with Fastmarkets reporting Purified Spherical Graphite (PSG) prices of US$3,500 to US$3,800 per tonne, a 42% increase over the last 12 months.

“These results continue to confirm that Siviour is a Tier One graphite orebody and, given its favourable deposit geometry and location in South Australia, presents Renascor with an opportunity to become a globally significant low-cost producer of high-value Purified Spherical Graphite for use in electric vehicles,” managing director David Christensen said.

“We expect these most recent drill results to support an improved and accelerated mining schedule in our optimised Battery Anode Material Study and staged expansions to proposed Siviour production capacity to meet the ever-increasing demand for Purified Spherical Graphite for lithium-ion battery anodes.”

Study to improve economics

Renascor’s optimised BAM study is assessing an increase to the previously planned PSG production capacity of 28,000tpa, as well as additional staged expansions to both the planned Graphite Concentrate and PSG operations to meet projected demand.

The 2,873m drill program was carried out to support this study and the holes reported to date have confirmed the continuity of high-grade graphite within the targeted Inferred resource zone.

Results from the remaining holes will be reported as they are made available before the data is used to update the Siviour resource estimate and underpin a revised mining schedule for inclusion into the updated BAM study.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Renascor, 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.