McLaren Minerals is gearing up for a six-week infill drilling program to gather metallurgical samples, explore for extensions and strengthen its resource at the company’s existing McLaren titanium sands project in Western Australia’s Eucla Basin.
The campaign is designed by ERM Australia Consultants and kicks off in two weeks. It is expected to cover 6000 metres of air core drilling.
The program’s top priority is to collect about five tonnes of sample material, which will be sent to IHC’s Mining laboratory in Queensland to conduct further metallurgical studies.
The company’s conceptual prefeasibility study is based on a medium-sized, 10 million tonne per annum (tpa) spiral concentration plant, which could produce up to 400,000tpa of ilmenite in concentrate annually.
IHC’S metallurgical test work will check if the currently designed process flowsheet is fit for purpose or whether it still needs tweaking to improve recoveries. It will also be used to refine an optimal strategy to deal with the residual clay impurities, known as slimes.
Earlier work confirmed a 75 per cent recovery rate for ilmenite, altered ilmenite and titanium dioxide minerals when the sample material was passed through wet concentration and beneficiation plants. The overall recovery rate of titanium was 57 per cent, while zircon recovery was 70 per cent.
The final product from processing testwork, ilmenite, was judged to be of sufficient grade to be a sulphate ilmenite, while the rutile was typically 95.7 per cent titanium dioxide with only 1.5 per cent iron impurity. The zircon had less than 265 parts per million uranium and thorium, which is considered low by industry standards.
Slimes reduced to less than 200 grams per tonne when a 3 per cent gypsum settling agent was added.
McLaren Minerals managing director Simon Finnis said: “Our upcoming drilling program marks an exciting step forward for our McLaren titanium project. This program will provide essential data for metallurgical testing, enhance resource confidence and explore the potential for extensions, ensuring we continue to progress toward our development goals.”
The campaign also aims to conduct infill drilling to increase the company’s confidence in the existing total 280-million-tonne resource, which is grading at 4.8 per cent. In particular, the company is targeting an improvement in its indicated category, which currently stands at 79Mt grading 6 per cent heavy minerals.
As the orebody remains open in all directions, the rig will also be mobilised, particularly to the southern and eastern fringes of the deposit, to test for extensions to the existing orebody.
Adding to its recent momentum, McLaren also confirmed two exploration licences covering the bulk of the deposit have been successfully extended for a further 18 months until September 2026.
With drilling rigs set to mobilise in the coming weeks, McLaren is positioning itself for a busy year ahead as it pushes towards unlocking the full potential of its titanium-rich asset.
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By James Pearson
