Buxton grabs Graphite Bull by horns in big drill campaign

Buxton Resources says a new diamond drilling campaign has nabbed a 68m intercept featuring about 10 per cent of visual total graphitic carbon (TGC) from 43m at its Graphite Bull project in WA’s Gascoyne region.

The company has completed 1221m of diamond core and 3534m of ongoing reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at Graphite Bull in a bid to produce an end-of-year mineral resource, with all holes intersecting graphite. It completed the two diamond holes it had earmarked for the current phase of core drilling earlier this month and has now  sent its first batch of 57 samples from about 52m of drill core to the ALS laboratory in Perth.

Core samples were taken from the first (639.3m-deep) diamond hole on the section that marks the eastern limit of the project’s current inferred resource as management sought to get a better understanding of the eastward and depth extensions of the graphitic horizon. The second diamond hole (582.3m deep) was put in on a section about 800m east of the first hole for similar reasons, including for sample material and grade determination.

Both the diamond and RC programs at Graphite Bull and Buxton’s nearby Narryer project have been rolled out by industry-leading contractor Topdrill in return for up to $1 million worth of shares to pay for about half of the drilling costs. And at Graphite Bull, earthmoving contractor Zanil is also providing its services under a similar equity arrangement up to a maximum of $30,888 in shares.

Management says it expects to see its first TGC results from the laboratory within a fortnight.

Meanwhile, Buxton’s RC drilling continues apace, with about 1500m of the originally- planned 5000m remaining at Graphite Bull. Most of the program’s meterage has been put into drilling 22 holes across 11 sections along the 1080m of strike at the deposit, east of the original 2023 inferred resource of 4 million tonnes at 16.2 per cent TGC.

Another two RC holes have already been put into the original resource area to consolidate data for the company’s planned resource upgrade to the indicated category, with possibly a few more holes to come.

Buxton says the RC holes have intersected graphite in samples representing 832m of drilling – which translates to 24 per cent of the total metreage drilled. The company says the outcome is better than its previous results because it drilled on the opposite azimuth, northwards instead of southwards.

Management says it expects a much-improved resource estimate this year, supported by more than 5000m of drilling in the past two years, two deep diamond holes for control and its recent structural mapping. The two deep diamond holes will also provide it with confidence regarding the orientation of the graphitic zone at depth and will allow further insight into the potential of the deposit.

The company has also sent a 1.5kg sample of graphite flake concentrate to China-based BTR New Material Group for qualification testwork after it had been upgraded by ALS Metallurgy to 95 per cent TGC specification.

Once the RC drilling is completed at Graphite Bull, Buxton plans to send the RC rig to its Narryer project to test the 800m-by-150m, 6000 Siemens electromagnetic (EM) conductor at its Ranger target with one or two holes, earmarking about 500m for the job.

The EM survey followed-up nickel and copper soil geochemical anomalies about 2km south of the Ranger prospect where IGO had also previously undertaken an EM survey.

The stage will soon be set for a new resource estimate and maybe a category upgrade at Graphite Bull and it will be interesting to see how another kilometre of strike and some deeper drilling will bring the project along. And analysis of samples from the big Ranger conductor at Narryer might also start to breathe life into that target.

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