Sunrise Resources highlights 'high-value' find in southwest Ireland

Sunrise Resources (LON:SRES) has completed a barite sampling programme from the past-producing Derryginagh mine in southwest Ireland. Sunrise also confirmed a large high-grade boulder find, up-slope from the existing mine workings. The company believes that this find suggests “the possibility of parallel, as yet undiscovered, barite veins of high commercial value”.

Investors on the London’s AIM market have welcomed this latest development, with shares up over 33% by early afternoon.

The company has dispatched 20 samples from underground mine workings to SGS Mineral Services in Cornwall and it now awaits the metallurgical results, which are due in approximately 9 weeks.

Barite is the mineral form of barium sulphate, an environmentally-friendly, naturally occurring and non-toxic chemical. The mineral is used as a weighting agent in oil industry drilling muds and as a higher value industrial filler in paints, plastics, brake linings, acoustic panels and other products.

Sunrise highlighted that white-paint grade barite is currently quoted between £195-220 per tonne, when delivered in the UK.

With the past-producing Derryginagh mine, Sunrise believes it has identified a niche opportunity for a new European barite supplier, as there is “significant demand for white paint-grade barite in Europe” but no major mine supply outside China and India.

At the SGS lab, the barite samples will be tested to evaluate low cost gravity concentration to" saleable specification". Previously, two hand-picked vein samples from a surface mine dump were evaluated by SGS. These initial tests, which included simple gravity separation, produced a “very high-grade barite concentrate”.

According to Sunrise, the concentrate exceeds the required chemical specification for the “purest and highest value” white-filler grades of barite. Furthermore, a separate colour test was also reported as "favourable".

The latest batch of 20 samples was collected from accessible sections of the No.1 level of the underground mine. The mine workings extend over a 200m strike length with a maximum depth of 60m.

Historically, the Derryginagh mine was worked in the period 1864-1922, and the mine is currently water filled below the No.1 level.

Back in the 1970s, Derryginagh’s mine workings were de-watered and mapped and subsequently, in the 1980s, four holes were drilled 100m below surface. Sunrise said that all four of these holes intersected white barite over an average width of 2.4m and over a total strike length of 200m, with the vein being open along strike and at depth.

Initially, Sunrise was spun out of Tertiary Minerals (LON:TYM) as Sunrise Diamonds, to focus on diamond exploration in Finland, and the company listed on London’s AIM market nearly five years ago. Then back in 2008, under the strain of the international financial crisis, the company’s plans in Finland ground to a halt due to lack of funding.

Since 2008, the company has diversified its asset base considerably with the acquisition and optioning of several projects across Ireland, Australia and Canada. Now, the recently renamed Sunrise Resources has two historic mine renovation type projects - Derryginagh and the Long Lake project in the Sudbury mining district of Ontario - as well as an exploration project in Australia.

The company still retains its Diamond assets in Finland.

Since it bounced back and diversified its business, Sunrise has built a broad portfolio of targets which includes diamonds, gold, nickel, copper and platinum group metals.