Nov 23 2010
Amazon Mining Holding Plc (TSX VENTURE:AMZ) has announced the results for the initial drilling campaign at the Apatita Phosphate project located adjacent to Amazon's Cerrado Verde Potash project in Minas Gerais State, Brazil.
The programme consisted of 12 holes for a total of 1,022m of HQ sized diamond core.
The Company is encouraged by success on two of three phosphate prospects tested at Apatita. Phosphate values at the Alto da Serra and Nau de Guerra prospects warrant further drilling with substantial tonnage potential defined. Drilling in the two prospects identified mineralized phosphate between 0.01% and 9.57% P2O5 with widths of between 1m and 22m. The Company plans to continue drilling, targeting a 43-101 compliant resource estimate. In addition, Amazon will continue its exploration on five other prospects that have been identified along a 30km strike length by the regional mapping and surface grab sampling programme (Amazon's press release on Monday, 08 November 2010). Drilling at the Matutina prospect, located over 5km away from the Alto da Serra and Nau de Guerra prospects, only encountered low grade mineralization. Nine drill holes were completed in this prospect.
Brazil is the world's second largest importer of phosphate. In 2008, more than 45% of the 3.2Mt of P2O5 consumed was imported. Early in 2010 Vale S.A. spent nearly 6 Billion US dollars acquiring seven main phosphate assets. Six of which are located less than 250km away from Amazon's Cerrado Verde Potash project. The P2O5 grade for Vale's recently acquired Brazilian phosphate assets range from 5.45% to 11.12% P2O5.
The initial drilling at Apatita was primarily planned to define the width of mineralized phosphate within the Areado group (Sequence of flat lying sediments which unconformably overlie the Verdete Slate unit [The Verdete Slate hosts the Cerrado Verde Potash mineralization]).
Alto da Serra prospect surface mapping and grab sampling have identified a mineralized surface expression of 4.5km2 and the 48 surface grab samples taken in this prospect averaged 8.2% P2O5. AP-MA-02 drill hole completed in this prospect highlights high grade potential (2m at 9.49% P2O5) and low grade bulk tonnage potential (18m at 3.00% P2O5).
Nau de Guerra prospect surface mapping and grab sampling have identified a mineralized surface expression of 4.8km2 and the 64 surface grab samples taken in this prospect averaged 6.45% P2O5. Drill holes completed have intercepted high grade sedimentary units with drill hole AP-MA-06 returning 7m at 3.88% P2O5 including 3m at 6.35% and drill hole AP-MA-05 returning 16m at 3% P2O5 and 1m at 8.43%. These two holes are located approximately 2km apart in flat lying sedimentary beds.
All mineralized phosphate identified to date has been from the mapping of the sides and tops of the 50m to 200m high hills. These hills which represent the sedimentary rocks of the Areado group will present minimal stripping ratio from an open pit mining perspective. The Areado sedimentary package is also a very soft and permeable package of rocks that will be amenable to "free dig" and/or minimal blasting along with potential in situ leaching methods of mining.
President & CEO Cristiano Veloso commented "Given the favourable mining factors combined with the positive initial metallurgical testwork (reported in the November 8, 2010 press release), Amazon will explore the possibility of producing conventional fertilizers such as SSP, STP, MAP and DAP from the phosphate at Apatita. In addition, the Company will pursue the possibility of producing an innovative ThermoPotash Phosphate product. Mitsui has been selling ThermoPhosphate in Brazil since the 1960's. The combination of phosphate with ThermoPotash could substantially increase the potential market for Amazon's proposed product. Potentially, manufacturing this P-K product would also represent limited additional capital and operational expenditures as both potash and phosphate rocks would be processed in the same rotary kiln already required for ThermoPotash."
Competent Person and QA/QC
The technical content of this news release has been prepared by Mr. Beau Nicholls, MAIG, Consulting Geologist, who is a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101. 1m samples were split in half using a diamond core saw with half the core sent to SGS Geosol laboratory for analysis by X-ray fluorescence
Source: Amazon Mining Holding Plc