London-listed Blencowe Resources (AIM:BRES) said it will restart drilling at its Orom-Cross graphite project in Northern Uganda with the aim of completing all holes in around one month.
The group initiated a 1,800 meter diamond drill infill program in March - in anticipation of its acquisition of the project - which was later halted due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Blencowe says Orom-Cross is a potential world class graphite project both by size and end-product quality with a resource estimated in excess of 3 billion tonnes of graphite.
A 21-year mining licence was issued by the Ugandan Government in 2019 following extensive historical work on the deposit.
At present, 25% of the drilling program has been completed prior to Uganda’s lockdown and visible results have been ‘highly encouraging and in line with management's understanding.’
Shares in Blencowe Resources were trading 3.45% lower at 7p on Monday morning.
Cameron Pearce, Blencowe’s Executive Chairman said the group had “hit the ground running fast” and that “any delays due to Covid-19 lockdowns will not substantially impact progress.”
The group says drill rigs remain on site to resume the rest of the program upon the Ugandan Government’s relaxing of lockdown measures which is anticipated on or around 9 May 2020.
It added that compensation agreements were agreed and signed in the first quarter of the year to provide financial support to locals as Orom-Cross develops into a producing mine.
The current drill program, which consists of 59 holes, is designed to delineate around 8 to 10 million tonnes to JORC standard to provide the initial resource for 10 years of mining.
The area targeted represents less than 1% of the total Orom-Cross graphite deposit which the group said highlights ‘the potential significant scalability of development in the future.’
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