Home » What's New » Freehill Intersects 18m of Near Pure Magnetite at >63% Fe within 50m of Surface at Yerbas Buenas
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Freehill Intersects 18m of Near Pure Magnetite at >63% Fe within 50m of Surface at Yerbas Buenas

Highlights:

  • 120m of high grade magnetite averaging 30% Fe intersected in large magnetic structure
  • Structure is open to the south and widens based on geophysics
  • Only 12-14m of sand cover over structure allows for very simple pre-stripping
  • Assays confirm Yerbas Buenas contains very high quality magnetite suitable for processing at
    pellet plant 30km away where FHS has supply agreement
  • JORC Resource Mineral Estimate underway

Freehill Mining Limited (“Freehill” or “the Company”, ASX:FHS) is pleased to report outstanding assay results from the maiden drill program at the flagship Yerbas Buenas magnetite project in Chile. As reported, a 4,300m of Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling program was successfully completed on 11 December with holes ranging from 150m to 250m in depth.

Assay results have been received for the six holes that have been drilled at the YB6 structure. Key highlights from first set of assays include:

Table 1 – Significant total iron (% Fe total) grade intervals for drill holes along the YB6 structure

Exploration Overview

Exploration was confined to the southern portion of the project area with drilling focusing in and around the trial mining pit area and confirming magnetite mineralisation within several identified magnetic structures to the immediate north and south of the pit that form part of a contiguous elongated magnetic structure 2.3km long.

The structure is open at both the northern and southern boundaries of the project tenement. Drilling covered some 1.1km of strike along the southern portion of the main 2.3km structure. The maiden drilling campaign comprised 24 RC holes completed in December 2018 for 4,300m of drilling. Figure 2 (as shown in the attachment) shows the campaign drilling targets of YB1, YB3 and YB6. Figure 1 is a north-south cross section of downhole iron grades along the transect.

Drilling of the YB6 structure:

  • Shows it contains substantial sections of almost pure magnetite.
  • Confirms that the structure is mineralised with magnetite iron ore.
  • Shows the structure appears to thicken and widen in a southward direction.
  • The magnetite is of a high quality, low impurity suitable for pellet feed production.
  • The structure has very little overburden.

Hole YB016 contains 22 intervals of lower grade intersections and if these are classified as an inter-burden and removed from the downhole average then the average grade of the remaining 142m from 14m-186m becomes 30.5% Fe.

Detailed test work carried out by Freehill at Intertek laboratory has shown that a total iron content of 30.5% Fe would provide a 38% Mass Recovery using the standard Davis Tube Recovery (“DTR”) method commonly used for magnetite assessment.

In very basic terms this means that for every 100 tonnes of material that could be mined and processed approximately 35 tonnes of magnetite could be recovered to a high grade fine product.

A range of intervals with varying total iron grades was chosen from hole YB016 and analysed using David Tube to determine the recovery to magnetic product. The concentrate was then assayed using conventional XRF methods.

The average Davis Tube magnetic concentrate grade derived from those tests provides a good indication of the quality of a potential pellet feed using Yerbas Buenas mine concentrates.

Complete assaying of all samples is expected to be completed in early March allowing resource modelling to begin.

Management Commentary

Freehill’s Chief Executive Officer Peter Hinner commented:

“These are simply outstanding assays and whilst many of the intersections exhibit high grade mineralisation, the highlight is the 18m of near pure magnetite we intersected less than 50 metres from surface. These assay results are a major milestone and value catalyst for Freehill as they unlock a great deal of Yerbas Buenas’ value.

“We have now demonstrated that the magnetic targets identified by geophysics and now drilling contain a high quality magnetite suitable for the large, local pellet feed plant owned by Chile’s largest iron ore producer Compania Minera del Pacifico (“CMP”), a subsidiary of CAP.

“Yerbas Buenas is shaping up as a significant Chilean magnetite project with established offtake agreements and third party processing operations available to us only 35 kilometres from site. We look forward to reporting a JORC Mineral Resource Estimate during March and also updating our Conceptual Exploration Target.”

About Freehill Mining Limited

Freehill Mining Limited (ASX: FHS) is a mineral exploration company focused on creating shareholder wealth through the identification of mineral resources in Chile and development of its Yerbas Buenas magnetite project. The company has also identified copper and gold mineralisation on its tenements and plans to undertake further mineral exploration programs on these at a later date.

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