Commencing of drilling

14 Apr 2008 07:00

Tertiary Minerals PLC14 April 2008 www.tertiaryminerals.com 14 April 2008 DRILLING STARTS ON STORUMAN FLUORSPAR DEPOSIT IN SWEDEN • 12 Drill Holes Will Test Deposit Over 2km Known Strike Length And For Extensions • Fluorspar Prices Still Rising In Tight Markets • Applications Submitted For Extended Ground Holding And Additional Fluorspar Prospect___________________________________________________________________ Tertiary Minerals plc ("Tertiary" or "the Company") is pleased to announce thatit starts drilling today on its 100% owned Storuman fluorspar deposit in theVTM?sterbotten district of Northern Sweden. The Company has moved quickly to start its evaluation work following acquisitionof the project in January this year. An environmental permit has been obtainedfor drilling and initially twelve diamond drill holes are planned. Eight holeswill test the known shallow fluorspar zone along the axis of its 2 km knownextent and four will test for extensions to the NW where some of the highestgrades were reported from drilling programmes carried out in the 1970s.Mineralisation has not been closed off in any direction from its outcrop. A second drill rig is scheduled to be mobilised to site later this week toaccelerate the drill programme which aims to confirm the thicknesses and gradesof potentially economic mineralisation and to collect samples for bench scalemetallurgical testwork. The information obtained from the drilling andsubsequent metallurgical testwork will form the basis for a technical andeconomic scoping study which the Company aims to complete this summer. The Company also announces that it is extending its ground holding withapplications for three further exploration licences, two to cover possibleextensions to the known deposit and one elsewhere in the region where a furtheruntested fluorspar deposit is believed to occur. The price of fluorspar continues to rise on world markets with some fluorsparconsumers, several of which are based in Europe, facing critical supplyshortages as traditional supplies from China are diverted to meet growingChinese domestic demand. China has recently imposed export quotas and exporttaxes to discourage export and thus ensure domestic supplies. The latestreported price for Chinese fluorspar delivered to Europe is $350/tonne. Background Information Fluorspar is the commercial name for the industrial mineral fluorite (calciumfluoride - chemical formula CaF2). It is the main industrial source of fluorinefor the manufacture of hydrofluoric acid and derivative fluorine chemicalsincluding refrigerants, PTFE (TeflonTM) and aluminium hydrofluoride, a flux usedin the reduction of alumina to aluminium. It is also used as a flux in steelmaking, in the ceramics industry and in the manufacture of nuclear fuel (uraniumhexafluoride). The Storuman fluorite deposit was first evaluated by the Swedish GrTM?nges Groupin the 1970's when drilling, resource evaluation and pilot plant metallurgicaltestwork was carried out. Subsequently the GrTM?nges Group was taken over andbroken up and the discovery was largely forgotten. Storuman is a flat-lying sandstone-hosted replacement deposit. It has beendefined, but not closed off, by 39 diamond drill holes and extends over an areaof at least 2 km by 1.2 km where it is typically 3-10m thick. No recent resourceestimate has been made for the deposit. However, in 1974 GrTM?nges documented an"ore reserve" of 12.5 million tonnes grading 13.3% CaF2. Of this, 37% fellwithin an open-pit designed by GrTM?nges, the rest being reportedly mineablefrom underground. This estimate is not compliant with any current resource orreserve code and should therefore only be used to indicate that the tonnagepotential of this deposit is very large.Granges drilling did not close off the deposit and it is open to expansion onthree sides along from, and away from, the trace of its outcrop along the sideof a hill. Some of the highest grade drill intersections having been made at theextremities of the drilled area e.g. : Drill hole 26 : 3.4 m grading 23% CaF2 from 9.9 m depth*Drill hole 34 : 15.2 m grading 14% CaF2 from 47.3 m depth*Drill hole 38 : 3.0 m grading 20% CaF2 from 34.2 m depth* (* Drilled thicknesses reported are believed to approximate to truethicknesses). Metallurgical testwork carried out by GrTM?nges was successful in producing acidgrade (min. 97% CaF2) fluorspar concentrate with very good recoveries. The deposit is located in an area with well established infrastructure. It islocated adjacent to a sealed highway and only 15km from the regional town ofStoruman which is connected by rail to the City and Port of Umea on the Gulf ofBothnia. A conceptual target for the Company is a mining operation producing at least100,000 tonnes per annum of acid grade fluorspar. The world market for fluorsparis just over 5 million tonnes per annum of which 65% is for acid gradefluorspar. At present, China accounts for over half of world fluorspar production butexports only 25% of its output. Export tonnages have fallen by more than halfsince the year 2000 and this trend is predicted to continue. Furthermore, thequality of the exported material is both declining and becoming unpredictable.Further details of the Storuman project, site photos, and schematic drill planscan be found on the Company's website at: http://www.tertiaryminerals.com/index.php?page=storuman Note:The information in this release has been compiled and reviewed by Mr. PatrickCheetham (MIMMM, MAusIMM) who is a qualified person for the purposes of the AIMGuidance Note for Mining Oil & Gas Companies issued on March 16, 2006. MrCheetham is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and also amember of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy. Further info: Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman, Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: +44 (0) 1625-626203 Ron Marshman/John Greenhalgh, City of London PR Limited. Tel: +44(0)20-7628-5518 Jonathan Wright, Seymour Pierce Limited. Tel: +44(0)20-7107-8000 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange