It’s a conglomerate ! Lindian unearths lucrative bauxite deposit in Africa

Lindian Resources looks to be onto a lucrative, high grade bauxite deposit in Africa that has now been confirmed by the company as a rare “conglomerate” style deposit. Initial unconfirmed XRF results at the Bouba Plateau at Lindian’s Gaoual Bauxite Project in Guinea, show extraordinarily high aluminium oxide numbers of up to 61% with only low concentrations of nuisance minerals such as silica present.

The first two partially complete auger drill holes were showing as mineralised with the sought after high grade “conglomerate style” mineralisation right to the end of hole before the two holes were abandoned at 8m depth and 12m depth respectively due to mechanical rig failure.

Spare parts and another drilling rig are now being mobilised from Mali to recommence drilling activities within the next few days according to management.

Most companies that set out hunting for bauxite are hoping for conglomerate style mineralisation rather than its more pedestrian “in-situ” style cousin but mostly are forced to settle for an in-situ deposit. 

Conglomerates have generally been transported by water over time and boast thick layer on layer deposits whilst in-situ deposits are generally much thinner as they have never been subjected to geological transportation. 

Conglomerates are also generally much higher grade and at first pass this seems to be the case for Lindian.

The 8m drill hole returned unconfirmed XRF derived grades of 60.8% aluminium oxide and importantly, only 6.4% iron oxide and 4.2% silica, which are nuisance minerals for bauxite miners. 

The 12m hole showed impressive aluminium oxide grades of 61.3% and only 5.3% iron oxide and 4.9% silica.  Both holes were still in conglomerate Bauxite at the total depth of each well.  Grades are uniformly high throughout and this is typical of conglomerate-type bauxite deposits.  

Lindian has mapped out a detailed drilling plan covering over 20 square kilometres of the Gaoual Bauxite Project area, including the Bouba Bauxite Plateau where only a relatively small area of the deposit is covered by sand.  

The maiden drill program has been designed to confirm that the deposit has both scale and grade and initial results are looking to be quite interesting for the $16m market capped Lindian. 

Managing Director, Shannon Green said; “The confirmation that the Bouda Plateaux at Gaoual is a very high-grade conglomerate bauxite plateau is truly a transformational milestone for this company.  The indicative grades of in excess of 60% aluminium oxide resulting from each of the partially completed drill holes shows the world-class nature of this project”.

According to Wikipedia, Guinea ranks first in the world for Bauxite reserves and sixth in the extraction of high-grade Bauxite which means that bauxite mining is not new and unusual for this African region.   

If Lindian can nail the grade and scale at Gaoual, accessing the necessary infrastructure to turn it into a mine shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. 

Watch this space. 

Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au