Allup discovers suite of critical minerals in old drill samples

Allup Silica has undertaken further analysis on its 2023 air-core drill samples and identified promising rare earths, uranium and graphite mineralisation at its Pink Bark project near Esperance in WA’s Albany Fraser region.

The campaign originally conducted a broadly-spaced exploration scout drilling campaign for silica and rare earths, however it identified a significant kaolin clay deposit that the company believes may contain a resource between 700,000 and 1.2 million tonnes.

Pink Bark’s ground sits in the Albany Fraser province’s Biranup zone, north of Esperance and the project was originally acquired to explore for and develop a silica sands deposit.

Management says the decision to revisit the samples from the AC program is due to several ASX-listed firms reporting successful discoveries of wide areas of saprolitic clay enriched in rare earths overlying Biranup’s late-stage granite intrusive rocks. It says the area has emerged as a focus for clay and carbonatite-hosted rare earth deposits.

The company’s recent assaying for other minerals revealed uranium oxide results up to 232 parts per million and total rare earth oxides (TREO) of 1985ppm, with significant rare earth anomalism discovered in supergene and bedrock across a 49 square kilometre area.

It said three holes drilled in the south of the site encountered graphite rich bedrock, with further work required to determine the quality of the graphite.

Management says additional drilling programs will need to be undertaken to ascertain the full size and scope of the uranium, rare earths and graphite at its project site.

The considerable quantity of kaolin discovered last year sits within a 69 sq km area and was noted in thicknesses ranging between 5m and 20m in the 41 hole AC program, averaging 20m depths across two exploration licences, for a total of 823m drilled and logged at 1m intervals.

Initial analysis of the early samples yielded results in the range of 17 per cent to 20 per cent aluminium oxide (alumina).

Kaolin – also referred to as kaolinite – is mined in many countries and is an important raw material in many industries and applications.

About 70 per cent of kaolin production is used to make paper. In white ceramics, it can comprise up to 50 per cent of the product. It can also be used for paints and bathroom ceramics.

Whilst Allup already has solid shows of silica sands scattered across its many WA projects, the re-assaying of the old samples and the subsequent discovery of critical minerals such as uranium and rare earths may well add a couple of new dimensions to the company.  

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au