High grade mineral strikes have buoyed West Australian explorer Allup Silica with assays revealing an average raw material surface grade of 98.8 per cent silicon dioxide at the company’s Sparkler C project.
Sleeves were rolled up for a hand auger drilling program across private farmland in the Lake Muir district 120km northwest of Albany where high purity silica sand as deep as 2.4m was dug up.
Some 30 samples were sent off, returning grades as high as 99.7 per cent at an average iron oxide reading of 2094 parts per million.
The samples point to a potential premium 99.5 per cent silica, sub-100ppm product once processed and have Allup keen to get back in the field with an air-core rig in the new year.
Allup Silica Chairman Andrew Haythorpe said "the results… have given the board great optimism that the company’s strategy of low-impact exploration to identify those areas of the greatest resource potential and purity is working well and returning the results we were hoping for.”
“The next drilling phase… will give a greater understanding of the extent of the high-grade resource.”
Sparkler C’s early results come on the back of work at nearby Sparkler A which in June revealed an inferred mineral resource estimate of 70 million tonnes at an average 99.7 per cent silica dioxide with 84ppm iron oxide.
The sub-100ppm iron oxide reading is key to selling the product to solar panel manufacturers.
Flat glass and ceramics are more forgiving at 400ppm and 2000ppm respectively.
Land access and heritage deals have already been struck with an eye to developing Sparkler next year.
Further south near Esperance Allup has also completed a hand auger drill campaign at its Pink Bark silica sand project with results expected early next year.
The company’s modus operandi down south is to target farmland to negate the need to clear native vegetation and to remove unwanted topsoil from private farms.
Outside of farm country Allup is also probing ground in the east Kimberley and Northern Territory.
With a sizeable shortfall in supply there is strong demand from a myriad of industries to get more high-purity silica sands projects online.
The product is used in everything from road base and foundries to phone screens and optic cables.
Australia in March followed the lead of many Asian nations by adding silicon to its strategic critical minerals list and a $1bn fund has been set up by the Federal Government to support manufacturing of minerals, which could include silica.
There is an adage that one must dig deeper to find riches. Under Allup Silica’s gameplan to target unloved farm topsoil, the company merely needs to scratch the surface.
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