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Pioneer Resources posts Australia’s first caesium resources

Published: 13:00 22 Mar 2017 AEDT

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Establishment of a JORC resource is an important step for Pioneer

Pioneer Resources (ASX:PIO) has generated Australia’s first caesium JORC resource at its 100%-owned Pioneer Dome Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum Project.

The JORC resource stands at 10,500 tonnes of caesium ore known as pollucite with a grade of 17.1% caesium oxide.

Caesium, within the mineral pollucite, is currently mined in small quantities at the Tanco Mine in Manitoba, Canada, and sporadically at the Bikita Mine in Zimbabwe.

Supply is considered very constrained.

David Crook, managing director, commented: “The mineral resource estimate is a significant step toward the Company realising the value of the Sinclair Caesium Zone, which was discovered in September 2016.

“Preliminary metallurgy is looking very positive, with a simple process identified that can produce the very high value, high density caesium formate brine for use in the oil and gas industry.”


Metallurgy

A consultant has been engaged to conduct a series of tests to determine an optimal processing route, along with capital and operating cost estimates for the selected processing route.

Material for the initial metallurgical testing is a 25 kilogram composite sample from drilling completed in 2016.

The metallurgical tests on the pollucite sample have readily resulted in the production of a very high density, clear fluid that is expected to be confirmed through chemical analysis as caesium formate brine.

The second round, testing the leaching characteristics of varying size fractions, has commenced.

Pioneer is also advancing negotiations with parties interested in securing pollucite or caesium product off-take. 


Analysis

Establishment of a JORC resource is an important step for Pioneer in realising the value of this potentially valuable caesium resource.

Any future mining operations would be well serviced by existing mining-related infrastructure with the Goldfields to Esperance Highway and Railway traversing the project.

The project is situated 30 kilometres north of Norseman and 150 kilometres south of the regional centre of Kalgoorlie

The company is now preparing to collect a bulk sample of pollucite for larger scale comminution and metallurgical test work.

Preparation includes a mine design, environmental studies and a safety management plan.

In addition, drilling and soil geochemistry has identified other priority exploration targets for caesium and lithium with the next round of drilling planned to resume in the June quarter of 2017.

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