Mineral Commodities through its wholly owned subsidiary MRC Exploration has lodged six new exploration licenses and entered into a Joint Venture in Western Australia on another exploration tenement.

The company is targeting lithium (Yandeyarra Prospect), channel iron (Glen Florrie Prospect ) and gold -copper deposits (Doolgunna and Cave Hill Prospects)

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Yandeyarra – Four Exploration applications lodged over an area covering 876km2 of prospective ground for hard rock lithium pegmatite 20km southwest from the Wodgina lithium mine operated by Mineral Resources and 50km southwest from the Pilgangoora Lithium -Tantalite projects under development by Pilbara Minerals and Altura Mining.
  • d Doolgunna & Cave Hill

            – Doolgunna – one granted Exploration Licence with Farm -in Agreement for MRC to acquire up to 90% interest in the tenement covering 62km.

           – Cave Hill – One Exploration Application Lodged over 150km2

  • Doolgunna & Cave Hill both over highly prospective near surface stockwork gold with historical workings and copper anomalies along strike from De Grussa copper mine in the Narracoota Volcanics and Goodin Fault.
  • Glen Florrie – One Exploration Application over channel iron deposit 160km southeast from Onslow, with historical drilling results including numerous additional CID targets.
  • $1.5m fully funded minimum commitment over the next two years.

The lithium prospects are located in the world class Wodgina pegmatite and greenstone district which is 20- 50k m away from three world class lithium -tantalum projects under development and in production.

This district hosts the historical Wodgina Tantalite (Ta) and Beryl (Be) pegmatite mines as well the world class Mount Cassiterite (Sn -Ta ) deposits. These three minerals are strong pathfinder elements for lithium rich pegmatites. The Wodgina and Mount Cassite rite pegmatites have discrete units of Spodumene (Main Lithium mineral) and Lepidolite (Lithium mica) and Lithiophilite (lithium manganese phosphate).

The area under application consists of a north -east plunging synformal ultramafic system intruded by nume rous granites and associated pegmatites. This is a similar geological setting to the Wodgina and Pilgangoora deposits and other LCT (Lithium -Cesium -Tantalum) pegmatite belts in the world.

The area under application has historical sampling indicators of Beryllium rich pegmatites, which are known associated minerals for pegmatites. Due to the lack of historical exploration for lithium in the area under application it is seen as a priority greenfields exploration project.

The areas under application consist of a very large tenement holding of  878 km2

The Company has a planned exploration programme that includes surface mapping of all pegmatite with field XRF scanning of indicator elements to determine its host potential for lithium minerals (mainly Spodumene). Positive results will be followed up by external laboratory tests to confirm lithium grades and mineralisation type. The best targets will then be drilled to delineate the resource potential. Work will start as soon as the exploration licences are awarded.

Doolgunna Gold- Copper Prospect ( Granted E51/1766 :JV with A Levissianos and L Szalay)

Key terms of the Joint Venture:

MRC has a right to earn up to 90% interest in the Tenement by:

  • The payment of $40 000 for reimbursement of past expenditure
  • Undertaking, at its sole expense all exploration work including drilling up to 8 exploration holes within a period of 2 years (Earning Period)
  • Levissianos and Szalay have alright to continue to prospect to the depth of 5 meters
  • Levissianos and Szalay will maintain a 10% free carried interest up until a decision to mine or may elect to convert to 1% Net Smelter Royalty NSR
  • MRC may withdraw from the Earning Period at any time by giving 30 days notice.

This tenement  have numerous mesothermal -style gold stockwork systems and have produced numerous coarse gold nuggets from quarts reefs over the past 100 years. The tenement used to be known as the Revere Project (E51/1079 in 2008- 2014, Sandfire Resources , Enterprise Metals and Murchison Exploration)

In addition to the gold targets there is a strong target for volcanogenic massive suphide (VMS) Cu -Au systems within the Narracoota Volcanics (typical of the DeGrussa copper deposit).The Goodin fault and the Southern Boundary fault (Yerrida Basin) strike across the tenement. These structures are primary exploration targets as they function as major conduits for mineralizing fluids.

MRC have already completed a site visit to confirm historical gold workings and the location of historical exploration holes. A geophysical and drilling program is currently being planned that will target four mineralized structures for gold and copper.

Cave Hill Copper-Gold Prospect (E51/1867)

 The area under application (120 km 2 ) was known as the Mooloogool Project (Zone 6 & 8) by Dourado Resources in 2011 -2013. Auger drilling work by Dourado produced near surface copper anomalies but no follow up work was done. The historical copper anomalies reported by Dourado will be re -inves tigated.

The tenement is also very close to the intrusive Goodin dome and the folding of the Doolgunna formation as well a fault structures associated with the intrusives may have introduced metal rich fluids (Au -Ag -Cu -Zn). Structures in this area will be targeted for their precious and base metal potential.

MRC intends to drill a number of deep (150m) exploration holes to investigate historical copper and gold anomalies as soon as an exploration license is awarded.

Glen Florrie Channel Iron Deposits (E 08/2963)

Exploration license (140km 2 surface area) have been lodged over a number of channel iron deposits. The deposits under application are located in the Ashburton Shire/Province in the Hamersley Range 160km southeast of Onslow.

The target iron deposits are part of the Miocene Hamersley CID deposit currently constituting up to 40% of the iron ore material being exported from the Pilbara.

Some of the CID deposits have historical resource and drilling work conducted on them in 2007 -2008 (Terra Search for Keller Group, unpublished report Dec 2011), but currently do not have a JORC compliant resource.

Historical grades (not publically reported, Terra Search Pty Ltd, Mt Florry Review, Dec 2011) are up to 56% Fe over 6m (1.5 to 7.5m depth below surface). The geology and iron ore grade reported, correlate with nearby CID projects like Anthiby Well (Giralia Resources: 37.6Mt @ 53.6% Fe, declared March 2009) and Mount Stuart (Aquila Resources: 175Mt @ 54.39% Fe, 2016).

These historical exploration results have not been verified by MRC and as such the uncertainty does not allow reporting of the data at this stage and caution should be applied when interpreting the above results.The data also does not allow an exploration target to be declared at this stage.

MRC have a planned exploration programme that includes surface mapping of the CID deposits followed by an immediate drilling programme to delineate the historical resource identified and confirmation of additional CID targets. This will be executed as soon as the exploration license is awarded.

Mineral Commodities Executive Chairman, Mr Mark Caruso, said “the company’s recent exploration license application and Joint Venture agreement to explore in Western Australia is consistent with the geographic and commodity diversification strategy into tier 1 jurisdictions. MRC is now well positioned with the recent acquisition of the Munglinup Graphite project in WA to become a near term producer of graphite. The exploration ground in WA now gives MRC excellent exposure and opportunity and focus on other key minerals that form part of the current EV commodity cycle.”