Blencowe Resources (BRES) has completed its Stage 7 drilling program at the Orom-Cross graphite project in Uganda.
This campaign, the largest in the project's history, was central to the ongoing definitive feasibility study), both in terms of upgrading and expanding the JORC resource and fulfilling the requirements for the US$5 million grant from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
The company drilled 6,750 metres across 239 holes, and completed geotechnical drilling which will support pit wall design and the planning for the tailings layout.
As a result of the drilling, the new 'Beehive' deposit was confirmed, three kilometres from the two existing graphite deposits.
Depth was also extended to over 100 metres, three times deeper than previous drilling.
All previous drilling was focused on the near surface oxide materials which will be more cost-effective to mine, but stage 7 drilling in six deep holes has shown the continuation of ore bearing zones through to end of the holes, indicating the ore zones continue at depth as shown in earlier drill programs.
These deep holes support the view of a potentially multi-billion tonne resource, originally proposed by independent geological consultant Minrom.
Mineralisation across all 239 holes remains consistent with previous campaigns, but higher-grade results are expected from Beehive based on historical evidence.
"This latest drilling campaign has delivered excellent results against all the objectives,” said Blencowe’s executive chairman Cameron Pearce.
“We have always believed in the size, scale and high quality of the Orom-Cross graphite deposit, but this drill program has gone a long way to verifying that we have all these key attributes to establishing a tier one graphite asset. We achieved all our objectives - gathering essential geotechnical data to complete mine design, infill drilling to substantially upgrade the existing resource, and exploration to extend an existing deposit and thereafter to locate and discover a brand-new deposit. Importantly, the six deeper holes drilled at the end of the program confirmed graphite mineralisation well beyond 100 metres depth - three times deeper than before - with ore zones still open at depth.”
View from Vox
Added to previous exploration work, this latest round of drilling was designed to strengthen the case for Orom-Cross as a large, long-life and multi-cycle asset with exceptional product quality. So far, the work seems to confirm just that. Now, attention turns to integrating the new information into the definitive feasibility study to demonstrate the full commercial value of the project within the global graphite supply chain.