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VRX Silica acquires Boyatup project to complement its substantial silica sand portfolio

Published: 06:10 04 Feb 2019 GMT

silica sand
Boyatup will provide an addition to potential products and buyers

VRX Silica Ltd (ASX:VRX) has acquired the Boyatup Silica Sand Project in Western Australia from Silatec Pty Ltd.

The project is located 100 kilometres east of the port town of Esperance and has a total area of 105.7 square kilometres.

VRX will issue two million ordinary shares plus $10,000 in full consideration for the acquisition of Boyatup which consists of a single tenement.

Boyatup location

VRX managing director Bruce Maluish said: “The Boyatup deposit is subtlety different to the company’s Arrowsmith and Muchea Silica Sand Projects and can provide yet another option in the product range that the company can market in Asia.”

VRX will conduct a first pass drill program following an Aboriginal heritage study on the granted PoW (Program of Works) drill sites.

The drill program will also provide adequate samples for a preliminary test work program to determine the final sand quality, a preferred process circuit design and supply potential product samples to be forwarded to interested buyers.

READ: VRX Silica posts Arrowsmith Central maiden silica resource of 28 million tonnes

The company and its international marketing manager have now compiled a significant number of potential buyers for glass making and foundry industry raw materials.

The tenement is almost totally covered by vacant crown land (VCL), only a very small section is over farming freehold land which is of no interest.

Project vegetation

During a due diligence site visit in September 2018, VRX personnel noted the similarity to the company’s Arrowsmith and Muchea experience in that the vegetation is low banksia heath, and shows pervasive sand coverage over a possible laterite layer.

A 4.5 metres hand auger hole was sampled which showed the sand to be fine and pale yellow, ending in a stronger laterite layer.

Hand auger sand

VRX’s drill program will test a 4,900 hectares area in the centre of the tenement and is designed to ascertain the sand coverage and gain samples for bulk test work.

Initial spacing will be 1-kilometre x 800 metres which will be adequate for an inferred resource and to get enough samples for test work.