AMMG's kaolin project includes one granted tenement E70/3923, which lies adjacent to the small Wheatbelt town of Meckering and north-east of Perth. The Company also has 11 other exploration licence applications targeting kaolin in South West, Western Australia. The kaolin project's focus currently extends across three project areas - Meckering, Kerrigan, Bobalong and Kerrigan.
AMMG's Meckering tenement covers the historical Kelly and Jacobs Well kaolin projects, which was previously held by Swan River Kaolin Pty Ltd (SRK), a wholly owned subsidiary of Minerals Corporation (now in administration).
Kaolin was discovered in this project area by CRA (Rio Tinto), after the company had surveyed the local area in 1990. SRK's extensive exploration work found that the kaolin was bright and the Meckering clays found was a potentially marketable product.
Meckering E70/3923
AMMG's granted exploration licence E70/3923 at Meckering covers known kaolin deposits and carries a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 65Mt comprising 16.77Mt of indicated resource and 48.28Mt of inferred resource.
The exploration licence covers private freehold cleared farmland, therefore, extinguishing native title constraints. Land access and surface rights have been successfully negotiated with private landowners on the areas contained within the JORC resource area.
A trial mine pit is located in the area of the land access agreement, and the Company is progressing discussions with a number of overseas parties who have visitied the test pit and taken samples of kaolin for their own analysis and review.
Strategy
AMMG continues to review existing Meckering open-file exploration, pilot plant, and marketing data to progress with a kaolin resource upgrade program. The Company plans to undertake bulk sampling and metallurgical studies in conjunction with the potential market evaluation. AMMG anticipates that exploration work will unclude an air-core program with assoicated kaolin chemical and physical property analysis, followed by resource modelling and metallurgical characterisation studies.
About Kaolin
Kaolin is a soft white clay that is used in the manufacturing of china, porcelain, paper, paint and rubber.
Today, Asia is increasing its consumption of kaolin, which is a driving force in Australia's kaolin production. Asia's demand is for high brightness coating clays for high quality paper products. China is now the world's largest paper and board producer, which will see the importing of kaolin increase.
Alumina
The Company sent a 4 kilogram crude kaolin sample from its Meckering project to a Chinese technology holder for processing. Results indicated that 1.06 kilograms of 99% metallurgical grade alumina and 86 grams of 99.99% high purity alumina was successfully produced. The process was via a laboratory scale acid based process for the separation of alumina and silica from kaolin or aluminous clay. The Company's samples were then confirmed by Australian independent consultants, TSW Analytical.
The Chinese technology holder, Professor Shang, granted AMMG a 5-year option agreement to acquire the exclusive Australia-wide technology licence for the processing of kaolin to alumina.
Market Pricing of Ultra-High Purity and High Purity Alumina
Ultra high pure alumina is widely used in fillers for magnetic media to boost thermal conductivity, or composite resins and ceramic parts and substrates used in electronic components and semi-conductor manufacturing equipment.
Demand is expected to increase off the back of the expanding market for hybrid cars, electric vehicles, modern eletrical appliances and LED lighting.
AMMG believes that its kaolin resource may be able to accommodate a number of different product applications simultaneously, and is not confining itself to a sole focus on paper filler applications. Potential market opportunities for kaolin include:
- A filler in paper products
- A filler or binder in non-paper products such as rubber, plastics etc.
- A source of ultra pure and metallurgical grade alumina
- A source of high grade silica
South West Kaolin/Aluminous Clay Project Map