International Graphite moves closer to becoming WA’s first mine-to-market producer

The September quarter has seen International Graphite (ASX: IG6) continue its quest to become Western Australia’s first fully integrated mine-to-market producer of graphite products.

The company reported strong assays of high-grade, thick and near-surface graphite mineralisation intercepts from a ten-hole diamond drilling (DD) program at the Central and Mason Bay deposits within its flagship Springdale project near Ravensthorpe.

Once operational, Springdale is expected to produce sufficient amounts of graphite to meet global demand for battery anode materials.

Flowsheet design

The DD program focused on geotechnical drilling to inform mine planning and permitting and to provide metallurgical data for the design of the process flowsheet for the project’s concentrator.

Six holes drilled at Central and four at Mason Bay confirmed the grade and overall accuracy of the resource and demonstrated the continuity of mineralisation along strike.

The drilling results reinforce that Springdale has the attributes of a low-cost mining operation, namely a shallow overall deposit depth requiring limited drilling and blasting, good grades, oxidised material suitable for processing single product lines and a location in a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction.

“With only 25% of Springdale’s identified targets drilled to date and much of the tenement area unexplored, this project offers significant potential for future mineral resource growth,” the company said.

New tenement

International Graphite expanded its tenement holdings at Springdale during the quarter with the granting of E74/809 to the north of the identified mineral resource.

The company’s total acreage now stands at approximately 460 square kilometres.

Two additional mining lease applications have been made to incorporate the resource.

Bench-scale test work

International Graphite released further results from bench-scale milling and purification test work conducted on Springdale concentrate by industry specialist ProGraphite GmbH using 23kg of 95.3% loss on ignition (LOI) grade samples to produce a purified, spheroidised graphite product.

ProGraphite investigated process circuit options and resulted in the SpG18 and SpG11 products yielding grades of up to 76%, with properties exceeding the quality and physical specifications typically required for active anode materials.

International Graphite said there was significant potential to increase yield well beyond the scoping study projections.

PM visit

International Graphite hosted a visit to its development facility at Collie in September by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to assess the company’s contribution to the nation’s critical minerals industry.

The Collie facility is Australia’s first downstream graphite pilot and product qualification plant and a key link in the company’s mine-to-market development strategy at Springdale.

The company expects the visit to accelerate the development of the facility, given the growing global demand for quality graphite.