- Arcadia Minerals (AM7) updates the mineral resource estimate (MRE) for its majority owned Swanson tantalum project in Namibia
- Swanson’s indicated and inferred MRE is 2.59 million tonnes at 486ppm tantalum pentoxide, which is a 115 per cent tonnage increase and 17.9 per cent increase in grade
- The total in-situ metal content has also increased by 154 per cent to 1257 tonnes
- The revised mineral resource has formed the basis of a feasibility study, expected to be completed by September this year
- AM7 shares are down 2.04 per cent and trading at 24 cents
Arcadia Minerals (AM7) has published a revised JORC mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the 80 per cent-owned Swanson tantalum project in Namibia.
The new indicated and inferred MRE stands at 2.59 million tonnes, reflecting a 115 per cent increase, at an average grade of 486 parts per million tantalum pentoxide (17.9 per cent increase), 73 ppm niobium pentoxide and 0.15 per cent lithium oxide.
Further, the total in-situ metal content has increased by 154 per cent to 1257 tonnes.
CEO Philip le Roux mentioned the company’s primary objective was to increase the JORC resource estimate to more than 2.5 million tonnes.
“It is very pleasing to announce that we’ve achieved this goal and more, by attaining
an 18 [per cent] higher grade than what was reported under the maiden MRE published in September 2021.
“The results bode well for the company’s upcoming feasibility study, which is already underway with an outcome expected by September 2022.”
To date, only 15 of the more than 200 known pegmatites present over Arcadia’s three licenses have been explored through its 80 per cent-owned subsidiary Orange River Pegmatite.
The company used public domain information from 11 global tantalum operations to benchmark the Swanson project against other tantalum projects.
The weighted average grade of the 11 deposits is 233 ppm tantalum pentoxide, indicating that the Swanson project’s grades are significantly above its global peer group and of the highest grades in the world.
The feasibility study is underway and estimated to be completed by September this year.
AM7 shares were down 2.04 per cent to trade at 24 cents at 11:32 am AEST.