Estrella Resources has revealed high-grade manganese in Timor-Leste just days after nailing down new exploration licenses at its Samalari prospect in the nation’s Baucau Municipality.
The company says the site is showing manganese oxide mineralisation along a 1.7km strike zone with widths of up to 5m. Early grab sampling has pulled up manganese hits ranging from 32.7 per cent to 53.9 per cent, according to laboratory analysis from Australian Laboratory Services (ALS).
Further in-field analysis taken since with portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) has shown a high correlation with the initial rock-chip samples analysed by ALS, suggesting a high level of confidence in the accuracy and precision of the on-the-spot tests. It also means that exploration can move at a rapid pace by removing the wait times for laboratory assays.
Management says the findings have confirmed that the deposit is high-quality, making it the most significant discovery for the company in the region to date.
Estrella Resources managing director Chris Daws said: “We are thrilled with the high-grade manganese discovery at Samalari within our newly-granted Exploration and Evaluation Licenses in Timor-Leste. Pleasingly, most of our field pXRF rock-chip determinations exceeded 30% manganese and up to 56.2% manganese. The confidence gained from these reliable pXRF determinations, which substantially reduces assay wait times, enhances the efficiency of our exploration efforts.”
The Baucau licenses, officially granted three days ago, cover 194 square kilometres and take Estrella’s total landholding in Timor-Leste to almost 700sq km. It provides the company with a remarkable opportunity to expand its exploration efforts in one of Southeast Asia’s truly untapped mining regions.
The Samalari prospect, just 7.5km from the northern coastal highway and close to grid power, offers easy access to infrastructure, with proximity to Timor-Leste’s third biggest city Baucau, just 5km away. Additionally, the mineralisation appears to cover an area of low population and virtually no farmland.
The geographical advantages should greatly help exploration logistics and the company’s potential future mining activities.
Now that management has recruited an in-country technical team with local geological skills, it intends to quickly push forward with more extensive mapping using light detection and ranging (LiDAR), sampling and induced-polarisation (IP) geophysical surveys to test the subsurface geology. A scout drilling program has also been planned to explore the site’s deeper manganese potential.
Under the terms of the licence, the company can conduct exploration for four years, with a possible two-year extension.
Manganese, as a steel hardening alloy, is considered a strategic metal by the United States and as a critical metal by the European Union. As such, the discovery at Samalari could mark a pivotal moment for Estrella and reinforce Timor-Leste’s potential as a significant player in the global mining landscape.
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By James Pearson
