Australian Vanadium (AVL) has received approval from the Western Australian Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.
The company submitted a programme of works (PoW) on E70/4924-I over the Coates vanadium deposit.
This application is for drilling up to 15 diamond core holes at Coates deposit concentrating on the vacant crown land portion of the tenement.
The intention is to prepare the diamond drill cores at a laboratory in Perth and then ship them to Montreal for metallurgical testing.
The Coates deposit is situated in the Shire of Northam approximately 35 kilometres east of Perth.
Geology of the deposit is unique and shows that vanadiferous magnetite is developed from the weathering profile of an underlying gabbro in a laterite outcrop on a ridge.
Surface sampling in 2018 and 2019 confirmed that there is significant vanadium content in the caprice with values up to 1.59 per cent vanadium oxide.
A total of 11 samples were taken and all except one returned vanadium values exceeding 0.7 per cent vanadium oxide.
One sample was obtained from a pisolite cap over granite and was not related to the gabbro host rock. This sample also had a notably higher aluminium content.
Australian Vanadium has signed a joint venture with Ultra Power Systems (UPS) to develop the deposit.
Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, UPS will spend $50,000 on exploration on the tenement within the first 12 months and $150,000 during the first 24 months.
This drill program intends to determine the deposit’s suitability as a low-cost feed for a full commercial-scale processing plant which UPS intends to build in Western Australia.
Drilling will also enable a resource estimation of the Coates mineralisation to JORC standards to be produced by the joint venture in 2020.
The exploration diamond drilling will use either PQ or HQ core and it will be possible to obtain enough bulk samples for metallurgical testing.
Drilling of vertical holes and larger diameter core will ensure good sample recoveries in the laterite cap-rock and the weathered gabbro.
Australian Vanadium’s share price is steady today with shares trading for 1 cent apiece at 1:20 pm AEDT.
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