Australian miner Pacific Bauxite Limited announced late last week that it has identified three pockets potentially containing high-grade bauxite ore at its South West New Georgia Bauxite Project in the Solomon Islands.
The firm said that, of over two hundred samples taken on the site, over half showed soil totalling at least a forty-percent concentration of alumina.
According to the company’s analysis, the samples outline three distinct outcroppings of high-grade bauxite ore with alumina concentrations of between 55 percent and 57 percent.
Though silicon dioxide levels proved to be higher than bauxite at Pacific’s Nendo Project, over one-third of the samples showed a silicon dioxide level of 16 percent or less.
The firm said that more precise results will be available after the samples are tested in the laboratory.
“This first phase field work on the Project has returned exceptional results and, with the existing infrastructure in the area, offers a very real opportunity to deliver early production,” explained Pacific Bauxite’s CEO Mark Gwynne.
“This prospecting program could not have been completed as efficiently without the full support of the local communities and the Company is pleased to see their efforts rewarded in the delineation of a project that potentially offers enormous benefit for the people of South West New Georgia.”
Pacific said that the firm is continuing to flesh out the boundaries of the outcroppings in question.
In addition, Pacific is marshaling equipment for continued drilling which they estimate will begin over the next few weeks.
The firm’s license for the project covers over ninety square miles of an uplifted limestone reef harboring bauxite clay.
The majority of the mineral deposits in the area are as yet unexplored, but a great deal of infrastructure is already in place should full-scale production begin, including a nearby port that can facilitate Handymax and Supermax bulk cargo ships.
– Source: Australia Business News
