【Ferro-alloys.com】;

Altech Chemicals (ATC) has announced a significant increase in the mineral resource estimate (MRE) for its wholly-owned Kerrigan kaolin deposit in the West Australian Wheatbelt.

The company reported an inferred resource of 125 million tonnes at an ISO brightness of 85.2 per cent, a 47 per cent significant increase on the previous Geos Mining 2011 estimate.

Geos Mining attributed the increased tonnage to the additional drilling data that has improved confidence in previous results and has confirmed the overall global resource and the modification of some barren or low grade areas.

In 2020, Altech completed a program of 27 aircore drill holes collared throughout the deposit in order to verify some of the earlier drilling and obtain samples for further test work and analysis.

The latest MRE was determined based on these recent aircore drilling results.

Managing Director Iggy Tan said the Kerrigan kaolin project “has developed as a separate stand-alone kaolin project which (Altech) will be looking to divest should an attractive offer be forthcoming”.

“Currently the kaolin feedstock required for the Johor high-purity alumina is sufficiently supplied from our 100 per cent owned Meckering deposit, which has a life of mine of more than 250 years,” he said.

The Kerrigan deposit is located 20 kilometres south of the Wheatbelt town of Hyden, and sits within exploration licence E70/4718-I, that covers an area of 480 square kilometres. The licence was granted in 2015.

• [Editor:Alakay]