ACDC Metals completes drilling at Goschen Central, moves rig to Watchem project

ACDC Metals (ASX: ADC) is a step closer to releasing a JORC resource after completing drilling program at its Goschen Central heavy mineral sand and rare earth element (REE) project in Victoria’s Murray Basin.

In this latest campaign, 77 holes for 4,038m were undertaken in February at Goschen Central, and samples have been despatched for analysis.

Results are expected within four-to-six weeks.

Additionally, ACDC has engaged Snowden Optiro to provide support in calculating the resource.

ACDC chief executive officer Tom Davidson noted it was the company’s first drilling program since its IPO and ASX-listing in mid-January.

Prior to the February campaign, 21 aircore holes had been completed at Goschen Central in December last year.

This latest program involved drilling on roadside verges at 800m spacings and gathered representative samples across the tenements to validate historical drilling completed by CRAE and Iluka Resources (ASX: ILU).

“The aircore drilling method is fast, low impact and economical, and we are making excellent progress ,” Mr Davidson said.

“ACDC’s team on site are highly experienced in mineral sand exploration and development, including in the Murray Basin, and we look forward to sharing assays results and further progress with shareholders,” he added.

Exploring western Victoria

As well as Goschen Central, ACDC is drilling across its other western Victorian tenements including Watchem and Douglas, which are also prospective for heavy mineral sands and REE.

Once the planned programs are concluded at Watchem and Douglas, the rig will move back to Goschen Central to complete resource and metallurgical drilling.

This is expected to gather larger scale samples for further metallurgical testing.

Mineral Technologies is undertaking the metallurgical test work and is currently completing characterisation evaluation on representative samples from Goschen Central.

This test work aims to assess the response of the sample to conventional mineral sand processes.

To-date, Mineral Technologies has produced a heavy mineral concentrate (HMC) during test work using the wet table.

This generated bands of valuable heavy mineral, which visually appeared to contain REE-bearing minerals monazite and xenotime.

Results from this work will underpin future optimisation programs, as well as scoping and engineering studies, which are due to be carried out later this year.

ACDC also plans to apply for an Australian Government grant to fast-track testing of its medallion monazite process.