Highlights
o Approximately 13 tonnes of PQ core from 5 diamond drill holes has left Lubumbashi for Nagrom Laboratories in Perth via Dar Es Salaam
o The locations of the 5 metallurgical drillholes from which the bulk sample has been harvested, were designed to ensure a good geographical spread across the bulk of the Roche Dure deposit and that all material came from zones of Measured Resource, as identified from the November 2018 JORC compliant resource estimate
o The sighting of the metallurgical holes was designed to ensure both weathered material and fresh material was sampled to determine if lithium minerals in the upper weathered zone remain economically viable
o The tonnage of rock sampled, both fresh and weathered, was calculated to provide enough final concentrated spodumene representative of the Roche Dure orebody.
o Tin and tantalum recoveries, previously unreported in the 2Mtpa Scoping Study (press release dated 19 November 2018) will be determined and used in the ongoing Feasibility Study to calculate the scale of the likely reduction in operating costs from the sale of these by-products
o Any concentrated spodumene produced from the Nagrom test programme will be deemed to be “representative” given the geographical spread of the sample taken from the central and largest portion of the current Measured Resource of the Roche Dure pegmatite deposit
o Parcels of representative spodumene concentrate produced in the metallurgical test programme will be used to determine, at bench scale, if lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide can be manufactured from typical Roche Dure spodumene concentrates and will also be provided to potential off take clients/end users
ASX ANNOUNCEMENT 22 February 2019
AVZ Minerals Limited Level 2, Suite 9 389 Oxford Street Mt Hawthorn, WA 6016 Australia
Interesting that the samples are being shipped out to the east via Dar Es Salaam.. Just maybe the freight routes are not quite as unviable as many fear!!
It is encouraging to see that the company is getting on with all of the essential things that need to be done to progress this wonderful project. It will be interesting to see how much Patterson's clients tip into the hat. I think $10m will enable AVZ to do the essential things they need to do. $15m would be a real fillip for the project IMHO.
Chrs W2
