Black Canyon (ASX:BCA) bank another Balfour manganese discovery
Black Canyon‘s first pass drilling at the Balfour East prospect has struck thick, continuous zones of mineralisation, returning several high-grade intercepts from surface and confirming another discovery within the Balfour Manganese Field in Western Australia.
Assays as strong as 33m @ 13.5% Mn from 2m confirmed a cross strike width up to 300 metres with at least 600 of strike extent, backing up last month’s KR1 find with more zones of manganese enriched shale and another major discovery.
Black Canyon Executive Director Brendan Cummins said the discovery had further emphasised the prospectivity of Balfour.
“We have only drilled a small section of outcropping mineralisation at Balfour East, but it appears to be continuous and open in all directions except to the southeast,” Mr Cummins said.
“This reconnaissance style drill program does not fully test the potential of the targets, but it does provide important early parameters such as grade ranges, thickness and continuity, which we can use to assess the significance of the discovery.
“These results from our first pass drill campaign at Balfour East have delivered fantastic outcomes for the Company and we will further evaluate the drill results to understand the geometry of the mineralisation.”
Black Canyon already has a large 171 Mt @ 10.3% Mn JORC resource containing 18 Mt of manganese in place at Flanagan Bore and launched a 7000 metre RC campaign across six key Balfour targets to either set exploration targets or establish more mineral resources.
The Balfour East discovery has built on Black Canyon’s successful targeting and drilling of discovered in the field but is yet to be detailed enough to determine the full geometry of mineralisation and report true widths.
Further assays are expected to come in from the remaining targets at Balfour over the next month, and Black Canyon have begun multi-stage purification stages on a sample from KR1, achieving 97 per cent manganese as part of an expanded High Purity Manganese Sulphate variability.
Last year’s Scoping Study demonstrated robust economics and a 20-year mine life for the Flanagan Bore flagship, with Black Canyon holding a longer-term ambition of producing high purity manganese sulphate for the lithium-ion industry.
Balfour East results
- 33m @ 13.5% Mn from 2m, including 17m @ 15.6% Mn from 2m (BSRC032)
- 32m @ 11.3% Mn from surface, including 7m @ 14.6% Mn from 6m (BSRC033)
- 37m @ 11.5% Mn from 5m until end of hole (BSRC034)
- 45m @ 9.9% Mn from 1m (BSRC039)
- 41m @ 11.9% Mn from 7m, including 7m @ 15.3% Mn from 12m (BSRC044)
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