Sovereign discovers more rutile near Nacala rail corridor

By Wahard Betha

Stephens: Results outstanding

ASX listed resources firm Sovereign Metals says exploration drilling work conducted in its large licensed exploration area in Lilongwe, has unveiled a potentially substantial zone of shallow, high-grade saprolite hosted rutile mineralization at a site close to the Nacala Rail Corridor dubbed the railroad prospect.

Sovereign’s Managing Director Julian Stephens says in a statement that the outstanding results confirm that Sovereign’s ground holding in the country has the potential to host a new, globally significant rutile province.

Stephens explains that the outcome has been identified from the company’s first quantitative results at the railroad as they eye to expand the ground holding.

He says: “Our immediate drilling program is looking to expand this zone and test the very large, high tenor rutile soil anomaly at Railroad West.”

“Sovereign is at the beginning of what we think is the discovery of a potentially globally significant, strategic rutile province.”

He explains that the first drilled holes at the railroad targeted a high-tenor soil anomaly near the Nacala Rail Corridor where the hand-auger drilling averaging about 12m depth was undertaken along the original soil sampling line.

Stephens says the activity at the site showed a broad rutile anomaly over at least 5-km length within which the initial drill results indicated more defined mineralized area of at least 1.6-km in length, with width estimated to be between 300m and 500m.

He says drilled mineralization is still open to the South -West and that to the West of the railroad drilling is ongoing and currently targeting a very large, high-tenor soil anomaly that is over 3km wide.

Stephens says: “The railroad discovery confirms the Company’s belief that its central Malawi project has the potential to be a new, globally significant rutile province. Infill and step-out drilling is now focusing on the best areas of mineralization identified so far in order to work towards an initial mineral resource.”

“The majority of holes intersected significant grades of rutile mineralization in highly-weathered, soft “free-dig” saprolite material.”

In September this year, the company announced that its on-going regional soil sampling programme identified six new areas of rutile at surface.

Drilling at these prospects is now complete with the first quantitative results from broad-spaced (~200m spacing) drill-holes at the ‘Railroad Prospect’ confirming high-grade, residual placer-style rutile mineralization occurring over substantial areas.

The results have also shown that soil sampling is a highly effective method to quickly identify target areas, and soil sampling over substantial regional areas is ongoing in order to identify further priority targets.

Stephens says: “The Company’s overall strategy is to define a substantial resource that can support a long-life, large scale rutile operation.”

“Sovereign is taking a systematic and progressive approach to delineating potential mineral resources over the very large project area.”

Sovereign’s ongoing rutile work programme includes continuation of drilling at the railroad and railroad west prospects which are largest soil anomalies identified to date.

Stephens explains that this drilling program will target initial JORC resources in the areas of additional drilling to test a number of new regional targets discovered by soil sampling.

Sovereign’s work programme also include continued regional soil sampling to identify new rutile targets; commencement of desktop studies to assess applicability of different mining methods and; continued metallurgical test-work to confirm the flowsheet developed so far and produce rutile product for marketing purposes

Sovereign Metals is also prospecting for flake graphite in the Malingunde tenement and has just completed a pilot plant programme that processed 40 tonnes of feed material from Malingunde in Canada to produce 4-tonnes of high quality graphite concentrates.

The completion of the pilot plant has allowed a ramp up in graphite sales and marketing activities as Sovereign has commenced the distribution of the concentrates to numerous potential off-take partners.

Stephens says there has been a strong response for concentrate samples by potential off-take partners with over 10 parties having already requested and been provided with samples for assessment.

The Malingunde Graphite Mine will pay a total of US$200-million to the Malawi Government in form of taxes and royalties over a 15-years life span.

The estimated tax payable over the life of the mine is pegged at US$150-million with additional U$50-million in royalties.

The project will generate revenues during the operational phase in the form of taxation (30%) and royalties (5% of net volume).   

39 thoughts on “Sovereign discovers more rutile near Nacala rail corridor

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