Revitalised graphite explorer Oar Resources has put meat on the bones of its plans to flesh out the Oakdale graphite project in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula with a 5,500m air core drilling program as it leverages off strong demand for its highly sought purified spherical graphite, one of the Federal Government’s suite of critical minerals.
The company is eyeing an upgrade to Oakdale’s 2015 initial combined indicated and inferred JORC resource figure of 13.47 million tonnes at 3.3 per cent total graphitic carbon including 6.31Mt grading 4.7 per cent.
Oar has recently revived its graphite project on the back of surging demand.
With the rapidly growing EV market and the existing inferred Oakdale orebody open along strike and at depth, Oar’s management is aiming to expand the current resource and push it into the indicated category.
Oar previously punched almost 20,000m of 330 air core and 11 diamond drill holes into Oakdale to get to its initial JORC resource figure.
Whilst the drillbit is spinning in the field, Oar will also be starting metallurgical work in the lab to test if Oakdale graphite may be suitable to produce a battery-grade spherical graphite for use in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries.
The company has pulled in an independent consultant to produce a graphite concentrate exceeding 95 per cent total graphitic carbon in the first step in potentially producing a higher margin purified spherical graphite.
A planned updated scoping study will be using core from previous diamond drilling to remove the need to acquire fresh metallurgical samples.
According to the company, the original study indicated an estimated flotation concentrate grade of 90 per cent total graphitic carbon and underscored the robust economic nature of the project.
Notably, Oar says the demand for battery-grade graphite was significantly lower at the time of the original scoping study than now, as was the graphite price, now at historic highs.
Management says it is focused on a staged approach to expand on the previous work at Oakdale, including metallurgical testing to find out if it may yield a finer grade spherical graphite concentrate.
Oar Exploration Manager, Ross Cameron says: “This staged approach will ensure the company is well positioned to capitalise on the prevailing strength in the graphite market which has changed substantially for the better since the initial scoping study was undertaken in 2015, due to the demand for ethically sourced battery-grade graphite and the rapid uptake of electric vehicles.”
The Oakdale project is on the western wing of the Eyre Peninsula and is part of Oar’s large ground holding in the region of approximately 1,520 square kilometres of the Gawler Craton, that also contains Renascor Resources’ world-class Siviour graphite project.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
