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VRX Silica receives high-purity quartz results up to 99.95% at Warrawanda project in WA

Last updated: 02:15 05 Mar 2019 GMT, First published: 01:52 05 Mar 2019 GMT

Quartz outcrop
A quartz outcrop at the project close to the town of Newman

VRX Silica Limited (ASX:VRX) has received high-purity quartz (HPQ) results of up to 99.95% silica in rock chip samples at the Warrawanda project south of Newman in WA.

Three outcrops have been sampled and returned outstanding results, showing the potential to produce a high-value, high-purity quartz product.

READ: VRX Silica lodges final silica sand mining lease application for Arrowsmith Central

VRX Silica managing director Bruce Maluish said: “This is potentially yet another product we can supply in the silica market.

“The HPQ market is much smaller and industry-specific than the silica sand market for glassmaking but it is significantly higher value with prices up to US$300 per tonne for crushed and bagged HPQ.”

Recent focus of exploration has been on the quartz hills of the Warrawanda tenements, which rise to 15 metres.

READ: VRX eyes resource expansion for silica sand portfolio in Western Australia

Two hills, WWQ4 and WWQ6, were checked and sampled, along with a quartz vein internal to the WWQ5 ultramafic unit.

The results indicate the quartz in the outcrops is almost pure silica with very little in the way of contaminants.

It is possible to estimate an exploration target for the quartz outcrops that were visited, however, there are other outcrops on the tenements which remain to be further investigated.

The potential quality and grade of these exploration targets are conceptual in nature. There has not been sufficient exploration to estimate a mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a resource.

Approval to diamond drill these and other quartz targets have been received and the company will conduct a native title heritage survey before drilling begins in the June quarter of 2019.

The diamond drilling program will be designed to test the extent and quality of the deposits after the survey.