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Strike has a world-class graphite deposit on its hands; shares rocket 45pc
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Investors jumped on board Strike Resources today after the explorer announcing “one of the worlds highest-grade natural graphite deposits” at a Queensland project.
The resource for the Queensland “Burke” project came in at 6.3 million tonnes at 16 per cent total graphitic carbon (TGC) for 1 million tonnes of contained graphite.
This included a higher grade 2.3 million tonnes at 20.6 per cent TGC for 464,000 tonnes of contained graphite – at 18 per cent cut-off grade.
“These grades place the Burke deposit as one of the highest-grade deposits of graphite in the world held by an Australian listed company,” Strike said.
The stock (ASX:SRK) rocketed 45 per cent and was trading up 2.2c at 7.5c by Monday lunchtime.
The Burke project has the fourth-highest TGC grades of published JORC resources and reserves of ASX-listed graphite projects, according to Strike.
JORC compliance refers to the mining industry’s code for reporting exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves, managed by the Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee.
A Talga Resources mine in Sweden has the highest TGC grade of ASX-listed projects (25.3 per cent), followed by Syrah Resources’ Balama project in Mozambique (19 per cent) and Novonix’s Mt Dromedary project in Queensland (18.4 per cent).
A total of ten holes have been drilled and tested for graphite at the project.
Strike is now investigating the development of a mining operation producing 40,000 to 60,000 tonnes a year of graphite concentrate.
Further test work is underway to investigate the types of batteries for which Burke graphite is most suited, plus processes used in producing high quality product in commercial quantities.
Further drilling will take place before the start of a mining scoping study.
CSA Global carried out the mineral resource estimate.
Strike has a market cap of around $11 million.
