Peninsula Mines Ltd (ASX:PSM) has commenced a flake-graphite resource drilling program at its Eunha Graphite Project in the Chungnam Province, South Korea.
The diamond drilling program will test the Eunha North electromagnetic target, with two to four holes initially planned to determine thickness and orientation.
This will be followed by a detailed 40 metres x 40 metres drill out (up to 2,000 metres) of the 500-metre strike length, with the objective of defining a maiden indicated graphite resource for development.
Peninsula is also planning to drill test the 500-metre strike length Roadhouse electromagnetic target where rock-saw channel sampling has been completed on an average 40-metre spaced sections.
The data generated by the channel sampling will be of sufficient quality to be incorporated into JORC resource estimations.
Spherical graphite for the Korean lithium-ion battery industry
Peninsula managing director Jon Dugdale said: “The commencement of diamond drilling at Eunha is a key milestone for the company, as we look to define a maiden graphite resource in parallel with completing downstream spherical graphite testing and working with key end-users to develop high-purity, downstream, spherical graphite production for the Korean lithium-ion battery industry.”
In parallel with the resource drilling program at Eunha, additional metallurgical testing on a combined Eunha North and Roadhouse composite sample grading 6.7% total graphitic carbon (TGC) has confirmed a very-high concentrate grade of 96.7% TGC (target >95% TGC).
READ: Peninsula Mines’ high-purity graphite results confirm potential of high-grade Korean deposit
The Eunha graphite deposit is an ideal candidate for down-stream spherical graphite testing due to a low proportion (13.6%) of <20 micron graphite in the final concentrate sample.
The project is also located close to the Dangjin Port in Chungnam Province, where Peninsula has been offered an industrial site for downstream spherical graphite processing facilities.
The production of spherical graphite is a value-added process that increases the potential value of the graphite product from a current market price of $1,000 per tonne for fine flake graphite to $4,000 for spherical graphite.