December quarter propels Black Canyon’s (ASX: BCA) manganese resource growth trajectory - Kalkine Media

December Quarter Highlights

• Black Canyon upgraded the global Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) at the Balfour Manganese Field (BMF) to 314Mt @ 10.5% Mn with 33.1 Mt Mn.
• BCA has completed maiden MRE's for KR1 deposit (79 Mt @ 10.0% Mn) and KR2 deposit (24 Mt @ 11.9% Mn).
• Maiden MRE was estimated at 32 Mt @ 11.9% Mn for the Balfour East deposit and 7 Mt @ 12.1% Mn for the Damsite deposit.
• The company also advanced testwork to achieve battery grade sulphate production.

ASX-listed manganese explorer Black Canyon Limited (ASX: BCA) continues to advance manganese exploration in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. It is developing its tenements that are prospective for manganese mineralisation, including “Supergene Balfour” and “Woodie-Woodie” hydrothermal style deposits.

In the recently released quarterly report, the company listed developments at its project sites during the three-month period ended 31 December 2023.

Balfour global MRE exceeds 300Mt

BCA upgraded the  global MRE to 314Mt @ 10.5% manganese containing 33.1 Mt Mn for its Balfour Manganese Field (BMF) projects. It is important to note that the company has established a higher-grade component of 99 Mt @ 12.9% Mn with 12.8 Mt manganese.

KR1 and KR2 Maiden MRE
BCA has completed maiden MRE’s for the KR1 (79 Mt @ 10.0% Mn) and KR2 (24 Mt @ 11.9% Mn) deposits, bringing the total for these two deposits to 103 Mt @ 10.4% Mn containing 10.7 Mt of manganese, on the basis of RC drilling done for 112 holes over 3,419m.

Maiden MRE’s were also estimated at 32 Mt @ 11.9% Mn for the Balfour East deposit and 7 Mt @ 12.1% Mn for the Damsite deposit. Combined this brings the total MRE for the two deposits to 40 Mt @ 11.9% Mn containing 4.7 Mt of manganese, on the basis of a subset of the RC drilling completed for 84 holes across 2,896m.

Pickering and Damsite drill assays
BCA received assay results for Pickering and Damsite from the reverse circulation drilling campaign completed last year in July.

Data source: Company update

KR2 drill assays

During the December quarter, BCA also received final assay results from the KR2 discovery that included 14 holes over 378m drilled.

Data source: Company update

HPMSM strategy makes headway
The company concluded feedstock variability studies of the amenability of material from KR1, Damsite, Balfour East, Pickering, and Hurricane to simple beneficiation and reductive acid leaching. This represented the first step towards the production of high purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM).

The company has shortlisted the KR1 sample for multi-stage precipitation/purification, followed by chemical extraction to concentrate manganese in solution prior to crystallisation to generate HPMSM.

Data source: Company update

Wandanya Project - high-grade rock chip samples
In the December quarter, BCA announced that sampling done over the Wandanya Tenement returned high-grade results including, 53.3%, 58.5%, 57.9% and 57.8% Mn.

BCA has also completed a dipole-dipole IP survey which highlighted a strong chargeable anomaly located to the east of the main body of mineralisation and may represent a down dip extension.

The company plans to undertake drilling at the project after finalising a heritage survey.

Data source: Company update

BCA shares traded at AU$0.110 apiece on 8 February 2024.