Critical Minerals Group has received positive results from its drill campaign at the company’s Lindfield project showing the site’s potential as a dual commodity deposit for vanadium and high-purity alumina.
The assays come from the company’s maiden drill program at the Queensland project and show the results of 10 core holes with a standout return of 0.25m at 0.83 per cent vanadium oxide from just 11.25m.
Additional highlights include a 0.4m hit going 0.6 per cent vanadium oxide from 17.45m in addition to a 0.44m intercept recording 0.72 per cent vanadium oxide from 17.85m within the same hole.
Critical Minerals also recorded significant dual commodity hits inside the mineralised zone at Lindfield including a 5.1m section recording 0.48 per cent vanadium oxide and 7.1 per cent aluminium oxide from 7.4m in addition to a 4.8m intercept at 0.46 per cent vanadium oxide and 6.7 per cent aluminium oxide from 9m.
Encouraging alumina hits were also received including a 1.5m intercept going 17.1 per cent aluminium oxide from 2.4m and a 1m segment at an impressive 18.9 per cent aluminium oxide from 1.8m.
The company says the strong alumina hits provide confidence to begin metallurgical studies on the dual commodity potential of the project and has engaged a material science company to produce high-purity alumina at lab scale from material at Lindfield.
Critical Minerals has also engaged a third party to assist in developing a flow sheet for the site’s vanadium deposit.
The company completed its maiden drill campaign at Lindfield late last year when it sunk a total of 23 air-core holes for 860m in addition to one open hole and three water monitoring holes. The site currently has an inferred JORC resource of 210 million tonnes at a grade of 0.39 per cent vanadium oxide from surface. The deposit is shallow with a cut-off grade of 0.3 per cent vanadium oxide.
Vanadium has been traditionally used in high-strength, low-alloy steel, however the current hype surrounding the metal is due to its central role in vanadium redox flow batteries that are suited to large, grid scale energy storage solutions.
Queensland is quickly becoming a vanadium hub after the state government committed $10 million towards a vanadium common user facility in Townsville for an industrial pilot and demonstration facility for mineral processing in 2021. Last month the government allocated $75 million to the facility to support further extraction of high purity alumina, cobalt and rare earths in addition to vanadium production.
Whilst Critical Minerals is still waiting on the remaining assays from its maiden drill campaign at Lindfield, if the next batch of assays can replicate the dual commodity success of the first results, the company could well be sitting on an impressive dual commodity project with processing facilities soon to be close at hand.
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