Andromeda Metals Ltd (ASX:ADN) has started drilling at the company’s 100% owned Mount Hope Kaolin Deposit on the west coast of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
The air core drilling program will comprise about 50 holes for up to 2,500 metres targeting the thick, kaolinised weathered gneiss of the Mount Hope Kaolin Deposit.
Andromeda’s key objective is to infill drill the southern half of the Mount Hope Resource which is the thicker and higher quality portion of the deposit.
The program will also include drilling to test for the extension of the mineralisation to the south.
Resource upgrade
Results from the drilling program will be incorporated in a new resource estimate, and dependent on results, will be used to upgrade the selected potion of the resource from an inferred to an indicated classification.
The Mount Hope mineral resource yields 7.5 million tonnes of High Bright kaolin product when applying the minus 45-micron recovery factor.
The Ultra-Bright subdomain contains 1.6 million tonnes of minus 45-micron material with an ISO brightness (R457) of 84.1 and the halloysite subdomain contains 0.6 million tonnes of minus 45-micron material comprised of 17.2% halloysite.
The Ultra-Bright domain is comprised of extremely high purity, bright white kaolin with low halloysite levels.
This makes it ideally suited to high-value markets in specialty coatings and polymers, thus providing market diversification and de-risking opportunities while presenting new and potentially significant markets for the company to pursue.