Iron Road (ASX: IRD) is an independent, South Australian focused iron ore project developer, aiming to develop the Central Eyre Iron Project.
Iron Road intends to feed the iron pellet and concentrate markets of Asia, Europe and the Middle East, commencing with the production of 10 million tonnes of product per annum.
Iron Road to commence drilling at Gawler Iron Project
Iron Road (ASX: IRD, IRDO) has announced that approvals are in place for the commencement of the company’s maiden drilling programme to investigate potential for direct shipping ore (DSO) at the Gawler Iron Project in South Australia. The start date for the programme is scheduled for 16 March 2010.
Drilling programme approvals came from Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA), the Department of Defence and the Antakarinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara native title claimants.
Iron Road Managing Director, Andrew Stocks, said that it was a major step for Iron Road to have two concurrent drilling programs underway.
"The Gawler Iron project has advanced significantly since we entered into the project, shortly after the Company’s ASX listing."
“With the DSO potential at Gawler and the substantial magnetite exploration target at the Central Eyre Iron project, Iron Road has a highly complementary portfolio of iron projects in South Australia," he added.
“We have also brought on Dr Fop Vanderhor to project manage the Gawler Iron project as it enters a more demanding stage of development. Fop led the team that discovered the Railway iron ore deposit and we welcome the additional exploration and evaluation skills he brings to the Company,” said Stocks.
The project area is located approximately 25km north of the standard gauge Trans Australian Railway that connects to the Central Australia Railway at Tarcoola and ultimately a number of ports.
The drilling programme is situated within the southern block of EL4014 Mulgathing, centred around Mt Christie and to the south of Dominion’s Challenger Mine.
Ten high priority targets have been identified from in-situ field chip sampling and the analysis of high resolution magnetic and gravity data. The initial drilling programme entails 81 Reverse Circulation (RC) drill holes and six diamond drill holes ranging from 20m to 120m depth.
The company said the proposed exploration model for the Gawler Iron Project demonstrates excellent potential for BIF hosted DSO hematite mineralisation of a similar style to the Koolyanobbing deposit in the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia.
Close inspection of BIF outcrops within the exploration area has revealed that occasionally enclosed in the magnetite-gneiss are lenses of massive, coarse grained hematite or specularite.
Iron Road considers it unlikely that the specularite is the product of alteration of magnetite. Instead, it is interpreted to be the product of a structurally controlled hypogene process, either metamorphic or hydrothermal.
Although volumetrically insignificant in outcrop, the presence of specularite lenses is considered evidence for a process that may produce economic concentrations of high-grade direct-shipping hematite ore (DSO) in the right structural setting.
An example of this style of mineralisation may be found in the K-Deposit at Koolyanobbing in the Archaean Yilgarn Block of Western Australia. The BIF-hosted K-Deposit has been the main ore producer for Cliffs Natural Resources Koolyanobbing operations for many years and is unique among the Yilgarn iron ore deposits for the common occurrence of specularite.
Dry magnetic separation test work on core samples by the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy in the 1960’s produced high-grade concentrates at 56-65% iron with recoveries of 70-90%.
A field sampling programme undertaken by Iron Road during 2009 from ten localities returned an average grade of 53.4% iron (55.7% CaFe) from all samples collected, with several individual samples recording >60% iron, indicating potential suitability for direct shipping ore.
