Special Report: Suvo Strategic Metals (ASX:SUV) has boosted its White Cloud kaolin project resource by ~13 per cent to 39.5 million tonnes. Extensional drilling indicates there is a lot more to come.

Kaolin is a feedstock for high purity alumina (HPA), a component of lithium-ion batteries and LED lights. Suvo are the only active Hydrous Kaolin producer in the country with its operations in Victoria.

It also has a wide range of other industrial uses, like paper and paperboard, fiberglass, ceramics and paint.

An infill drilling program at White Cloud – ~250km from Perth in WA – has shown excellent consistency within the deposit, which is important to any prospective mining operation.

It also increased confidence in the resource estimate, moving the majority of tonnes from Inferred (12.8mt) into Indicated (26.7mt).

ISO brightness increased marginally to 80.7 per cent while the the yield increased 9 per cent to 41.6 per cent which results in a 22 per cent increase in contained kaolin to 16.4 million tonnes.

The completion of this resource estimate allows the project prefeasibility study to continue unabated, Suvo exec chairman Robert Martin says.

“The upgraded classification of Indicated Resources at White Cloud is the next step in our steady progression towards commencing operations at Gabbin,” he says.

“We can now progress and finalise potential off-take agreements and work with our laboratories to determine the most economical and profitable product mix we can derive from the resource and feed this information to our engineers to evaluate optimum design and economic outcomes.”

The deposit is ~3.5km from the town of Gabbin, its railway siding and associate infrastructure, which is the subject of an agreement between Suvo and CBH Group.

Suvo will be accessing the railway reserve leases, a 20,000-tonne storage shed, road and rail loading facilities, offices, onsite accommodation, power and water connections with excess land for lay down facilities, for use as a processing plant and logistics hub.

Getting even larger

A program of extension drilling – designed to make the deposit bigger — was completed at White Cloud during December 2020.

All of the drillholes that reached target depth intersected bright white kaolinised granite, with the remainder stopped short due to impenetrable cemented caprock.

These will be completed at a later stage due to promising intercepts, Suvo says.

Results from the December 2020 extension drilling are expected in the coming weeks and will be compiled by CSA for the purpose of a further update to the Mineral Resource Estimate.

It is expected that this update will add significant tonnes to total resources.

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This article was developed in collaboration with Suvo, 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.