Blencowe Resources (BRES) has outlined to investors a series of activities for 2022 as it seeks to drive its flagship Orom-Cross Graphite Project towards first production in 2023.
Orom-Cross is a potential world class graphite project both by size and end-product quality, with a high component of more valuable larger coarse flakes within the deposit, it explains.
A successful diamond drilling programme was completed in 2H21 and at this point, all assays have been completed; the Company said its technical partner Minrom is now working through a revised JORC Standard Resource which is expected for completion in the next month.
This programme, which was designed to infill the initial 2020 drilling programme and provide information for initial mine designs, is expected to provide additional tonnes to the 16Mt already contained within the JORC Resource and deliver a higher overall in situ grade.
Blencowe said the JORC Resource will provide enough tonnes for the first 15 years life of mine at expected mining levels, and that no further drilling is required prior to first production.
It has also acknowledged less than half of one percent of the deposit has been drilled to date and that there is an opportunity to substantially increase production tonnes and life of mine.
The company explained to its shareholders that this would involve further drilling ahead once the market starts ‘the exponential growth as forecast’ which would see it deliver considerably more tonnes of graphite for lithium-ion batteries than is currently demanded worldwide.
Blencowe said samples from the 2H21 drill program were sent to SGS Lakeside in Toronto, Canada in 4Q21 and that work has now commenced on Stage Three metallurgical test work.
The work is expected to take around 60 days to provide final results, with the expectation that Blencowe will obtain final fact sheets for all its products as expected to be sold ahead.
This will cover properties not completed in the 2021 Stage Two metallurgical test programme, which it said was very successful and delivered an overall composite product of 97.3% TGC.
The company said this result was ‘considerably higher’ than the entry level 94% required for battery grade graphite concentrate. It also provided a +90% recovery rate which is high.
The Company added that it has been working closely with the sales and marketing advisor, Lone Star to deliver a strategy for 2022, to provide a channel for sales of graphite ahead.
In addition, Blencowe announced that it has appointed Mr Nabil Alam - an experienced project manager - as the company’s Country General Manager (Uganda) starting from this month.
It said Mr Nabil will lead all Blencowe operations on the ground and will work closely with the Company's senior executives to bring Orom-Cross towards first production, expected in 2023.
Commenting on the outlined programme, Cameron Pearce, Blencowe Resources’ Executive Chairman stated: "There is an enormous quantum of work underway in all areas related to the Orom-Cross Project and our team is progressing well in every aspect, continuing to value-add to this exceptional graphite project as we drive towards first production next year.”
He added that the company would be expecting “considerable news flow” from all the areas highlighted within its work programme during the first quarter of 2022 and that all indications suggest it will continue to show that this is “a robust graphite project amongst global peers.”
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