Estrella strikes rich Timor-Leste manganese and | Australian Markets

Estrella Resources has shifted its Timor-Leste marketing campaign into prime gear after trenching unearthed major manganese with uber-rich visible estimates at its Ira Miri project. The company has despatched samples to Jakarta for testing and expects to obtain assay ends in about six weeks.

Meanwhile, the company can also be priming the rigs for a maiden drill marketing campaign at its billion-tonne Werumata limestone project, with market testing, environmental approvals and heavyweight web site visits all on the playing cards – underscoring a quickly maturing exploration story.

Estrella has to this point mapped manganese outcrops alongside 450 metres of strike at Ira Miri, which remains to be open in each direction. It can also be getting ready to haul out a 30,000-tonne bulk pattern for testing by potential consumers from India, Japan, China, Malaysia, Australia, Europe, the United States and Africa.

Fresh trenching revealed in-situ manganese beds within the Noni Formation, which had been supercharged with a secondary increase of remobilised boulders and detrital ore, to prime off a geological double-shot of mineralisation.

According to Estrella, visible estimates show more than 80 per cent manganese-iron oxides within the major beds and the enriched blanket above them, with solely small quantities of hooked up carbonate and silica impurities noticed.

The company plans to dig more trenches to chase the mineralisation alongside strike and line up a recent wave of targets forward of a new drill program.

Having wrapped up its 16-hole stratigraphic diamond drilling program, geared toward mapping the terrain, Estrella says it is able to zero in on the first manganese at Ira Miri. The company plans to fire angled holes into the primary lodes earlier than following them into the weathered zone to faucet into the richer supergene mineralisation.

The first drill marketing campaign will home in on the northern and southern outcrops of the 450m strike, earlier than swinging back to fill the gaps and map the total extent of the secondary and detrital mineralisation.

To nudge the exploration program alongside, the company can also be contemplating utilizing some airborne geophysics to create inverted, 3D imaging.

To keep momentum, Estrella’s drilling contractor CoreSearch has introduced in additional drillers and offsiders to run the rig on a 24/7 foundation, which ought to improve the project’s month-to-month drilling numbers.

Trenching has confirmed major manganese mineralisation within the Noni Formation and highlighted important secondary enrichment. With further geological experience now on the ground and a second crew engaged to keep the drills turning, we’re effectively positioned to advance each Ira Miri manganese and Werumata limestone tasks at tempo.

While the manganese story is already shaping up as a potential company-maker, Estrella has stored its eye on the ball on the company’s large Timor-Leste limestone prospect at Werumata in Baucau. Environmental functions for drill allowing are attributable to be finalised this week, which is able to unlock a 40-hole reverse circulation and diamond tail program to nail down a JORC-compliant useful resource.

To showcase its future manufacturing ambitions, Estrella additionally hosted representatives from Saudi-based trading home World Metals and Alloys and Indonesian mining and vitality companies outfit PT Raka Energi Mandiri (REM) on a tour of Werumata alongside Estrella’s Timorese three way partnership companions Murak Rai Timor.

The tour coincided with a doubtlessly game-changing deal just lately signed between Estrella and REM, which granted the latter unique advertising and off-take rights to Estrella’s high-grade calcite-rich limestone from its huge concessions. The settlement might see up to a whopping 500 million tonnes of limestone shipped out of Timor-Leste over the subsequent 5 years.

For a company nonetheless within the comparatively early levels of its Timor-Leste recreation plan, Estrella has kicked some important targets, with high-grade manganese mineralisation now recognized throughout virtually 500m of strike and a fast transferring monster limestone project on the boil.

If the manganese grades maintain up within the lab and the majority pattern finds favour with worldwide consumers, punters will possible begin paying critical consideration to this small-cap explorer with large ambitions.

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