Black Rock Mining (ASX:BKT) has doubled the mineralised zone of the Cascade prospect and will soon release assay results from the Epanko North prospect at its Mahenge graphite project in Tanzania.
Mahenge has an initial Exploration Target of between 30 million and 60 million tonnes at 8% to 12% TGC and is contiguous to Kibaran Resources’ (ASX:KNL) Epanko orebody.
A maiden resource from Epanko North is a key objective of the exploration program.
Early stage drilling is confirming extensive graphite mineralisation at Epanko North and Epanko Northeast with 1,500 metres drilled in the first month.
Mapping and sampling at Cascade has returned surface results of up to 20.4% total graphitic content and significantly increased the strike length and width of the mineralised zone.
Cascade is being systematically pit sampled and trenched, confirming zones of high grade graphite mineralisation within a 1300 metre by 800 metre area.
The 22 kilometre long Kituti structure is being mapped/sampled in detail to determine drill targets and metallurgical samples have been prepared from Epanko North for test work.
An aerial survey has been flown over the company’s main prospects, providing high resolution contour maps and photographs.
Steven Tambanis, managing director, commented:
“We have an excellent exploration team on the ground at Mahenge managing two drill rigs at Epanko North and two separate programs at Cascade and Kituti.
“Assay results have started to return from the laboratory with good results.
“This team is working to deliver a maiden resource from Epanko North and new drill targets from other areas.”
“We are delighted with the highly encouraging initial results from Epanko North and Cascade.
“The large field team is ensuring considerable progress and news flow over the next three months.”
Cascade Prospect
Black Rock has a number of field teams progressing the evaluation of a 1,300 metre by 800 metre footprint at Cascade, which is 4 kilometres north of Epanko North.
Results have started to return from the laboratory with good grades confirming the potential of the prospect, with best assays of 20.4%, 15.5%, 12.85% and 12.7% TCG.
Average grade for outcropping and basement pit samples is around 10% TGC.
The Cascade zone returned a highly encouraging set of results from trenching completed in 2014.
Within the 186 metre at 5.95% TGC total trench interval at trench C1, two higher grade zones were encountered: 24 metres at 7.89% TGC from 51 metres and 86 metres at 8.34% TGC from 115 metres.
In addition, an east/west trending creek in the centre of the zone contains at least 200 metres of exposed graphitic basement, for which 5 chip samples taken in 2014 averaged 10.06% TGC.
The Cascade prospect area was interpreted to have widths of 200 metres and 400 metres and strike of 600 metres, open to the north and south.
Mapping and sampling the cascade lode during June has substantially enlarged the surface mineralised zone to 800 metres in width by 1,300 metres of strike length.
This is an incredible width of mineralised ground for this district.
Results from about 300 outcrop/basement samples are awaited to complete the first part of the program.
This data should provide justification to commence drilling Cascade during this field season, shortly after the current Epanko north drill programme is completed.
Cascade has the potential to be larger in size than Epanko North with the current sampling program to provide a guide to surface graphite grades, strike length and widths.
Mahenge Exploration Program
Work is focused on infill drilling the western lode of Epanko North to determine its bulk tonnage graphite potential.
Over 1,500 metres of reverse circulation and diamond has been drilled in the first month of drilling.
The first infill hole of this programme at Epanko North drilled a highly encouraging 120 metre graphitic schist interval from 10 metre down-hole, indicating that this section hosts substantial widths of graphite mineralisation.
Maiden drilling at the Epanko Northeast lode returned zones of exceptionally coarse graphite from the first few drill holes with graphite flakes up to 8mm by 8mm, despite being pulverised by the reverse circulation hammer when drilled.
High grades are expected from this section.
Epanko Northeast (600 metres east of, and parallel to Epanko North) is a narrower, higher-grade graphite structure with >10% TGC trench grades.
This lode is being drilled with the objective of defining a higher-grade source of graphite mineralisation in a separate pit.
The 22 kilometre long Kituti structure is being traversed, mapped and trenched in more detail to determine wider mineralised zones for drill testing.
To date, this structure has not been comprehensively mapped.
The two drill holes completed at the Kituti prospect indicate that graphite mineralisation is near vertical in two parallel lodes with potential for significant tonnage along the 22 kilometres strike of the structure.
Analysis
Exploration continues to both confirm and enhance the prospectivity Black Rock Mining’s Mahenge Graphite Project.
While Epanko North and Epanko Northeast are expected to deliver a maiden graphite resource this year, Cascade is shaping up to be a stand-alone graphite zone, recently returning solid results with most assays expected over the next month.
Assays from Cascade are due over the next couple of weeks.
Besides being contiguous to Kibaran’s world-class Epanko, which has a JORC resource of 22.7 million tonnes at 9.8%, Black Rock’s tenements are also in a similar geological setting.
Black Rock is well-funded after raising $3.5 million to fund its exploration activities and re-listing on the ASX at the end of March 2015.
The capital raising was oversubscribed, and adding to the cash pot in May an additional placement was finalised adding another $500,000.
With exploration enlarging the surface mineralised zone to 800m in width by 1,300m of strike length provides a very large mineralised ground for the district and adds scale.
There are a number of price catalysts ahead including assay results, further exploration and maiden mineral resource.
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