Sovereign discovers rutile anomaly in Kasiya

By Wahard Betha

ASX-listed group Sovereign Metals says it has discovered a new rutile soil anomaly in its Kasiya tenement in Lilongwe following drilling works that it conducted in late 2019 and early 2020 on four prospects.

Sovereign’s MD Julian Stephens says the Kasiya rutile soil anomaly has a 2.4km width with potential strike length currently undefined, though surface mineral assemblages and airborne magnetics suggest it could be in excess of several kilometres.

“The observed rutile content of the soil anomaly is significantly higher than any anomaly previously tested,” he says.

Sovereign completed a shallow hand-auger program over the anomaly in early 2020 with results pending.

Stephens says: “The team is really excited at the number, size and tenor of rutile prospects that continue to emerge across our large ground holding in Malawi.

“The Company’s refined geological targeting model has met with immediate success at Kasiya and we are now confident more high-class prospects will emerge as we work through the numerous targets identified to date.”

The Kasiya prospect is within regional proximity to the previously announced Railroad and Railroad West saprolite-hosted rutile prospects suggesting the potential for large to very large tonnages of mineralisation within a modest radius.

Meanwhile, the company is conducting other rutile work programs including: laboratory processing of the large number of hand-auger and air-core drill samples from the late 2019 and very early 2020 drilling programs; Initial hand-auger drilling on a number of new saprolite-hosted prospects identified by the Company’s ongoing soil sampling program and mapping programs.

Sovereign is also conducting additional air-core drilling during the current wet season (December to March) to extend rutile mineralisation at depth and along strike on a number of prospects (subject to weather conditions allowing safe access), and is continuing with desktop studies on mining and tailings disposal methods in advance of potential future Scoping Studies.

Sovereign controls a very large area in Malingunde, Lilongwe underlain predominantly by paragneiss rocks which are commonly highly enriched in rutile compared to other similar paragneiss terranes globally.

The weathering process has further concentrated the rutile near surface creating an unusually high concentration of rutile in the weathering profile known as a residual placer that occurs in the form of a 20-25m thick blanket of mineralisation hosted within soft, friable and free-dig saprolite material.

Initial assessments by Sovereign’s geological team indicate substantial potential for saprolite-hosted, residual rutile placer mineralisation across the Company’s large >4,000km2 ground holding in Malawi.

The titanium dioxide (TiO2) minerals rutile, leucoxene and ilmenite are the principal feedstock for pigment production. Natural rutile is the highest grade feedstock for manufacturing TiO2 pigment and producing titanium metal. Titanium pigments are used in paints, coatings and plastics. Titanium also has specialty uses including welding electrodes, commercial aerospace and military applications.

According to the world’s largest rutile producer, Iluka Resources, global supplies of natural rutile are in structural deficit.

 Iluka sees continued growth in demand for high-grade titanium feedstocks over 2019 and is physically unable to satisfy all requests for feedstock in both the high-grade titanium and ilmenite segments of the market. Iluka’s contract prices for rutile exceed US$1,100/t to pigment manufacturers and up to US$1,300/t to small lot customers5 (welding and sponge).