Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Kibaran Resources has increased the indicated and inferred resource at its Epanko graphite project, in Tanzania, to 22.7-million tonnes of inferred resource, grading 9.8% total graphitic carbon, for 2.22-million tonnes of contained graphite.
The ASX-listed company told shareholders on Tuesday that the resource upgrade, which was previously estimated at 14.9-million tonnes at 10.5% total graphitic carbon, had outperformed all internal expectations.
“The Kibaran board of directors is extremely pleased with this outcome, as it not only confirms the confidence shown in drilling results released over the past months, but has delivered a result over and above our internal expectations,” said executive director Andrew Spinks.
He noted that the resource estimate placed Kibaran in good stead to become a key producer and supplier of graphite to the European market, and to that end, the company was now actively pursuing a second offtake agreement for the Epanko project.
The new indicated mineral resource of 12.8-million tonnes provided Kibaran with the technical basis to revise the terms of reference of its scoping study. The updated scoping study would evaluate the production parameters on up to 40 000 t/y and the indicated resource estimate allowed for a future study based on an expansion to 100 000 t/y of natural flake product, subject to future market demand increase.
The revised scoping study would be completed before the end of the month, Kibaran said.