Sponsored Content for Andrew Haythorpe

Allup Silica has beefed up the leadership team tasked with producing a prefeasibility study on its mineral sands project in Western Australia's Eucla Basin by installing Simon Finnis as its new managing director. The company has also added experienced mineral sands operator Peter Secker as a non-executive director as it ramps up its plans to develop the McLaren valuable heavy mineral sands project.

Allup Silica has nabbed a prized at-surface heavy mineral sands project next to the Eyre Highway at Western Australia's Eucla Basin in a bid to take advantage of a looming titanium shortage. The McLaren project, which has excellent road and rail access to the Port of Esperance, boasts a 2022 JORC-compliant resource of 280 million tonnes at 4.8 per cent heavy minerals.

Allup Silica's shares soared by more than 300 per cent today after confirmation that silica sands from the company's Sparkler project near Albany in WA will be suitable for the solar panel industry and high-tech manufacturing. Allup also tabled some stellar results from its Cabbage Spot project near Wyndham showing grades up to 99.4 percent silica. Its stock touched 13c from its close yesterday of 2.9c.

Boots on ground at Allup Silica's Cabbage Spot project has mapped out an extensive high-purity silica sand system within easy trucking distance to the Wyndham Port on WA's Kimberley coast. The company collected 20 surface samples along a 2km traverse designed to help pinpoint future priority drill targets. Previous sampling across the surficial sand masses returned a plethora of high-purity results peaking at 99.4 per cent silica.

A calculated punt by Allup Silica to test for rare earths at its Pink Bark project, 90km north-east of Esperance in Western Australia, has seen it hit clay-hosted mineralisation beneath the sand in its maiden drilling program. The campaign returned intriguing intercepts of 1m at 1169ppm TREO from 20m, 1m at 1985ppm from 21m and 1m at 798ppm from 8m.

Allup Silica has polished off a 26-hole maiden air-core drilling program at its wholly-owned Pink Bark project, 110km from Esperance in Western Australia. The 421-metre campaign was chasing silica sands and other potential clay-hosted rare earths, with holes drilled to an average depth of 16.5m. Management is expecting results towards the end of next month.

Allup Silica is rapidly ticking boxes at its Sparkler project in the South-West of WA as it readies the silica sands project for a mining licence which it will apply for next quarter. The company has appointed the South-West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council to undertake a Heritage Survey and it has also just wrapped up an auger drilling campaign at its Dune Buggy and Pink Bark projects near Esperance with some success.

High grade mineral strikes have buoyed West Australian explorer Allup Silica with assays revealing an average raw material surface grade of 98.8 per cent silicon dioxide at the company's Sparkler C

Allup Silica's Sparkler project in WA's Great Southern has delivered high-grade silica sand samples pure enough for the solar panels market ¬– an industry tipped to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide in the next few years. Improvements in processing for Allup have resulted in test samples attaining the holy grail for silica sand producers of iron oxide impurities below 100 parts per million.

Silica sand explorer Allup Silica has applied for two new exploration projects, Blue Vein in WA and Trigger Fish in the NT. The company is also looking to beef up its Dune Buggy project lodging an application to expand its tenement just 15km from the port of Esperance in WA. Since listing in May, Allup's strategy has been focused on projects, purity and ports.

Allup Silica has revealed an updated inferred mineral resource estimate at its Sparkler silica sand project in WA's Great Southern region the company says will help increase the purity of the final product. The updated in-situ resource now sits at 70 million inferred tonnes at an increased grade of 96.84 per cent silicon dioxide and a reduced iron oxide percentage of 0.34.

Allup Silica is seeking to prove up another silica prospect at its Pink Bark project, 110km from Esperance in WA. Preliminary surface sampling has returned silicon dioxide grades up to 98.82 per cent, with iron oxide levels ranging from 0.08 to 0.95 per cent. Further tests are underway to determine the potential for the sands to clean up into a suitable silica sand product.

Allup Silica has listed on the ASX with an exploration strategy of targeting high-purity silica sand resources with economically viable road and port access. The company raised $5 million for exploration and evaluation of its three WA silica sand projects that include an inferred JORC mineral resource estimate of 73 million tonnes at an average grade of 96.6 per cent silica at its Sparkler prospect.