Last checked at 19 Aug 2010 07:00
19 August 2010
DERRYGINAGH BARITE PROJECT, IRELAND
·; Underground Sampling Programme Completed
·; Metallurgical Testwork Initiated To Evaluate Low Cost Gravity Concentration
·; High-Grade Boulder Find Points To Additional Unexploited Barite Veins
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Sunrise Resources plc ("Sunrise" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed a programme of sampling for barite from underground mine workings at the past-producing Derryginagh barite mine in Ireland where it was recently awarded an exploration licence.
Approximately 20 samples of barite vein material were collected from accessible sections of the No.1 level of the mine by a specialist technical team with extensive experience in abandoned mine workings. Below the No.1 level the mine workings are currently water filled.
The barite samples have been delivered to SGS Mineral Services UK Limited in Cornwall where a programme of metallurgical testwork will start next week to evaluate low cost gravity concentration of the barite to saleable specification. This testwork is expected to take approximately 9 weeks to complete.
During associated field work a previously documented boulder find was confirmed and found to consist of large boulders of high-grade white barite. The find is located up-slope from the existing mine workings and suggests the possibility of parallel, as yet undiscovered, barite veins of high commercial value. Follow up work is being planned.
Photographs from the mine sampling programme are available on the Company's website at http://www.sunriseresourcesplc.com/derryginagh_project.html
Background
The concept for Derryginagh is for a modest-sized underground mining operation feeding a low cost gravity separation plant producing high-value filler grade barite.
Barite or barites (syn. baryte or barytes) is the mineral form of the chemical barium sulphate. It is an environmentally friendly, non-toxic natural product. It is chemically and physically unreactive, has a high specific gravity, and low oil adsorption. It also has good sound-deadening and radiation-shielding properties. These properties make barite suitable for use as a weighting agent in oil industry drilling muds and as a higher value industrial filler in, for example, paints, plastics, brake linings and acoustic panels.
The Derryginagh mine was worked in the period 1864-1922, supplying white barite to the local paint industry. The mine workings extend over a strike length of 200m and to a maximum depth of 60m. In the 1970s the mine workings were de-watered and mapped by a local company and in the 1980s four holes were drilled to intersect the barite vein at 100m below surface by Dresser Minerals International Inc., which was then a major supplier of drilling-mud grade barite around the world.
All four Dresser holes intersected white barite over an average width of 2.4m and over a total strike length of 200m, with the vein being open along strike and at depth.
There is a significant demand for white paint-grade barite in Europe but no major mine supply outside of China and India. Consequently there is a niche opportunity for a new European supplier as China's own internal demand limits traditional exports. The price currently quoted for white paint grade barite is £195-220/tonne delivered in the UK.
Initial tests have previously been carried out by SGS Mineral Services UK Ltd on two vein barite samples hand picked from the surface mine dumps and included a simple gravity separation test which produced a very high-grade barite concentrate that exceeds the required chemical specification for the purest and highest value white filler grades of barite. Colour testing, carried out by an existing buyer of filler grade barite, was also favourable.
Further information:
Patrick Cheetham, Sunrise Resources plc. Tel: +44 (0)1625-505947. Mobile: +44(0)7767 458751
Gavin Burnell, Astaire Securities plc. Tel: +44(0)20 7492 4750
The information in this release has been compiled and reviewed by Mr. Patrick Cheetham (MIMMM, MAusIMM) who is a qualified person for the purposes of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies dated June 2009. Mr Cheetham is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and also a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy.