Allup Silica Ltd (ASX:APS) has generated positive results from a maiden surface sampling program at its Pink Bark tenement in Western Australia, returning silicon dioxide grades of between 93.43% and 98.82% purity.
Silica sand is an increasingly important industrial mineral, used in a wide variety of industrial, commercial and technological applications, including in semiconductors and solar panels at the highest purities.
These initial samples from Pink Bark have revealed relatively low levels of unwanted iron oxide impurities, ranging from 0.08% (800 parts per million) to 0.95% (9,500 ppm).
While exploration of the tenement is in the early stages, the company has estimated a strike length of 6 kilometres within the total target area of about 29 square kilometres and has already submitted a Provision-of-Works (PoW) application to begin the approval process for future drilling programs.
“These results show promise”
“The company is excited by the potential these initial results indicate and we hope that after the metallurgical results are received, we will be in a position to ‘push the go button' on the planned drilling program,” Allup Silica chair Andrew Haythorpe said.
“Whilst it is early days, these results show promise, and it is an exciting starting point for the company’s exploration in this area.”
Pink Bark silica sand results tenement E63/2139.
Allup has submitted bulk samples to Nagrom Metallurgical Laboratory in Perth for further test-work due to the quality of samples collected thus far, intended to identify potential for processing into a marketable silica sand product.
Once tests have been completed, final results will be sent to Battery Limits metallurgical consultants for an Independent Metallurgical Report, which will then be released to the market.
The company expects to publish these results in the third quarter of this year, after which Allup will continue exploration at Pink Bark with drilling, sampling and analysis/metallurgy programs once approvals are received.