THE Gingko mineral sands deposit continues to grow in stature month by month – attracting the attention of the majors.
THE Gingko mineral sands deposit continues to grow in stature month by month – attracting the attention of the majors.
Each additional step in its development has confirmed the potential of the deposit to support a significant mineral sands project in the Murray Basin in south western New South Wales.
At the vanguard of this thrust and ongoing research is BeMaX Resources NL.
The Perth-based mineral explor-er — fighting a rear-guard action against a hostile takeover bid by Iluka Resources Limited — has considerably boosted its equity in the $40 million Ginkgo mineral sands deposit.
BeMaX is acquiring Imperial Mining (Aust.) NL, which will bring BeMaX’s beneficial interest in the BIP Joint Venture to 75 per cent.
The BIP JV, which owns the Ginkgo mineral sands deposit, consists of BeMaX (50 per cent and operator), Imperial Mining (25 per cent) and Probo Mining Pty Ltd (25 per cent).
Upon completion of the transaction, which requires the issue of 19.95 million BeMaX shares and 1.75 million options, BeMaX will have an issued capital of 71.1 million shares, capitalising it at some $22 million based on a closing share price of 30.5¢.
Iluka Resources has launched its takeover bid for BeMaX at 24¢/share.
The bid is subject to several conditions, including acceptance of holders of not less than 50.1 per cent of the BeMaX shares and the acquisition of the additional 25 per cent of the BIP JV being completed.
BeMaX is on track to complete a pre-feasibility study on the Ginkgo deposit by the end of November following the recent completion of a large diameter core-drilling program, which confirmed the deposit’s value.
Initial visual inspection of the core from two 203.2mm diameter core holes also confirmed BeMaX’s expectations of the appearance of the mineralised zones within the Gingko deposit, which was based upon earlier air core drilling.
The deposit is the largest contiguous coarse-grained heavy mineral sand indicated resource defined to date in the Murray Basin, with a resource of 252 million tonnes at 2.8 per cent heavy mineral (HM) at a 1.0 per cent HM cut-off.
It’s favourable grade, grain size, mineralogical and slimes characteristics are regarded as being very positive for future development.
BeMaX has interests in tenements covering more than 10,000 square kilometres in the northern part of the Murray Basin including the BIP JV tenements (Gingko), 100 per cent-owned tenements, and other joint venture tenements.
The northern part of the Murray Basin is considered very prospective due to the generally higher levels of valuable rutile and zircon in the heavy mineral concentrates as compared to the southern part of the basin.
Apart from Ginkgo, the BIP JV has considerable potential in the prospects identified around Gingko, at Laburnum, Snapper, Crayfish and Nareen.
