McLaren Minerals wraps up WA drilling blitz with bonanza titanium hits

McLaren Minerals has completed a major drilling program at its 529Mt titanium-rich heavy mineral sands development project near Esperance in WA.

McLaren Minerals (ASX: MML) has completed the biggest drilling campaign yet at its McLaren titanium project 150km east of Norseman in Western Australia.

The drill bit didn’t disappoint, delivering heavy mineral (HM) grades of up to 34.6 per cent, boosting confidence in resource expansion plans as the company advances towards a bankable feasibility study.

The recently completed program comprised 663 holes for 11,568 metres. It was designed to infill previous drilling and upgrade confidence in the project’s existing a JORC-compliant 529Mt mineral resource, which grades 4.5 per cent heavy minerals and contains 23.7 million tonnes of in-situ heavy HM sands.

The program was also designed to support future ore reserve estimates and feasibility work.

The Eastern shoreline program has proven to be invaluable to complete the geological picture. McLaren Minerals Managing Director Simon Finnis

The campaign included extensive infill drilling, step-out drilling on prospective extensions to the southwest and southeast, and variography drilling to establish realistic parameters for resource modelling. The company’s Eastern Shoreline target was also tested with 153m of drilling.

In June, McLaren reported a suite of standout assays from the ongoing program, including 22m grading 7.62 per cent heavy minerals (HM) from surface in one hole, including a peak grade of 30.65 per cent HM over 1m from 19m.

A second hole delivered 24m assaying 8.01 per cent HM with a best 1-metre interval assaying 29.68 per cent HM from 23m depth. The hit also featured a peak grade of 34.61 per cent HM, highlighting the presence of exceptionally rich mineralised zones within the broader deposit.

Importantly, a number of the strongest results were returned from an emerging south-eastern extension area sitting outside the current indicated resource footprint. The company has subsequently completed follow-up drilling to assess the scale and continuity of the new zone.

McLaren says its drilling has significantly improved understanding of the geology underpinning the deposit and has confirmed continuity of both upper and lower mineralised strand systems across the project area.

The work has also helped define a basement-controlled basin geometry believed to have acted as a trap for the accumulation of heavy mineral-rich sands.

The infill drilling, while boring, is necessary to increase confidence in the deposit and will lead to an updated resource and a maiden mining reserve. I am particularly happy to see the drilling to the south-west show strong continuity and the emergence of the south-east extension as an additional resource extension target.   McLaren Minerals Managing Director Simon Finnis

In a potentially important development, the drilling tested the Eastern Shoreline target, an interpreted palaeo-shoreline extending for about 12 kilometres east of the main resource.

The target was identified late last year based on geological interpretation, geomorphology and historical shallow drilling results. Twenty widely spaced holes across the target will provide McLaren with a broader understanding of the geological architecture controlling mineralisation.

While assays are still pending for that drilling, the company says the work has confirmed key aspects of its geological model and highlighted the potential for preservation of additional heavy mineral-bearing sediments within the targeted sequence.

Management said the company had achieved its strategic objectives for the drilling campaign.

With field work now complete, McLaren will focus on assay compilation, geological modelling, mineral resource upgrade studies and metallurgical test work.

The company is targeting an updated resource estimate and maiden ore reserve as key milestones in advancing the McLaren project towards development.

As more assays come to hand, it will be interesting to see how any significant revised interpretation changes the overall scale of the project and how it might stitch together with the nearby Eastern Shoreline deposit.

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