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- Diamond drilling has commenced at Bass Metals’ Mahela prospect and drilling has completed at Mahefedok North
- Results confirm that Mahefedok has the potential to expand
- Bass is continuing to explore its Permits to support future development and processing operations
Bass Metals Limited has announced that diamond drilling has commenced at its Mahela prospect and drilling is complete at Mahefedok North both located in Madagascar.
A 2,000 metre diamond drill program at the highly perspective Mahela prospect has begun with the aim to outline a maiden mineral resource in the second half of the year.
Mahela is located 3.5 kilometres south of the Graphmada Process Plant. The mineralisation is two to three times the size of the Loharano Deposit and is now thought to be similar mineralisation and equal strike length to Mahefedok, Bass’ primary graphite production asset.
Procedures at Mahela have undergone extensive exploration with a large amount of historical mapping outlining three distinct mineralisation zones.
These zones have a strike length of 600, 1,200 and 1,200 metres, and each zone consists of individual lenses varying between 40 metres and 60 metres in thickness.
The exploration team recently completed 44 auger holes for a total of 411 metres drilled with an average depth of nine metres. Results returned averages of up to 6.8 per cent fixed carbon (FC) over 11.3 metres and 8.4 per cent FC over 8 cubic metres.
Current diamond drilling is expanding on this work with the aim to define a significant mineralisation footprint. So far results have been encouraging with substantial zones of graphite mineralisation intersected with some zones having up to a 30-metre thickness from the surface.
As well as the commencement at Mahela a 1000 metre diamond drill has been completed at Mahefedok North with the aim of providing confidence in its existing Mineral Resources.
Mahefedok has been conducting systematic exploration activities since 2014 and the results obtained confirmed that it contained significant dirt-hosted flake mineralisation 1.8 kilometres in strike length.
Trial mining began in the north in 2016 and to date a total of 10,000 tonnes of material has been mined with the product being sold to Graphmada.
In late 2016, Bass took full control of Graphmada and a first pass 2300 metre diamond drill program was completed. This indicated significant intercepts of easily mineable saprolite mineralisation.
Current mining operations at Mahefedok target three zones of mineralisation that compose the existing Mineral Resource of 3.5mt at 4.2 per cent total graphic carbon (TGC).
Additional mineralisation was also found outside of the current mineral resource estimate. This data will be used to possibly extend the areas of mineralisation mining and the expansion of Mahefedok North.
Bass is continuing to explore its permits within the region to develop a resource capable of supporting future developments of large-scale mining and processing operations.
