The testwork program is due to take around five months, comprising 10 weeks for spheronisation work and eight weeks for the electrochemical characterisation work.
This program will be done in parallel with resource estimation work at the project site in the Northern Territory, with results from both activities due to underpin a scoping study on production of fine flake graphite concentrate.
Kingsland (ASX:KNG) wants to upgrade the current 194.6Mt inferred resource at 7.3% total graphitic carbon (TGC) to indicated status, which comes with a higher level of confidence and paves the way for mine planning.
The project is already one of the largest known graphite resources in Australia with a mega 700Mt to 1.1Bt exploration target featuring a grade range of 7 – 8% total graphitic carbon (TGC) confirming the enormous scope of the asset.
A drilling program of four, 83mm diameter diamond holes is also planned across the ~600m long strike of infill drilling carried out in 2024 to intersect the favourable graphitic schist.
Results from drilling will provide an additional 6,000kg of material for metallurgical testwork.
“This is another important step in developing the Leliyn graphite project,” KNG managing director Richard Maddocks said.
“The results of the metallurgical test-work combined with the impending mineral resource update will enable us to commence a scoping study into establishing a graphite mining and processing operation at Leliyn near Pine Creek in the Northern Territory.
Future work on the resource estimate will incorporate geo-metallurgical parameters to enable more favourable domains of graphitic schist to be modelled and therefore targeted in mine planning.
Kingsland is well funded to advance work on the Leliyn project following the strategic investment by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners in October last year.
The backing involved a binding offtake agreement on future graphite concentrate production for processing into value added products including battery component manufacturing.
