Peculiar Knob
OVERVIEW
The Peculiar Knob Project is located in central South Australia 770 kilometres northwest of Adelaide and 90 kilometres southeast of Coober Pedy. Mineral Lease (ML) 6314 is 100% owned by WPG and covers an area of 2.5 square kilometres. Topography is flat with minimal vegetation comprising salt bush and blue bush. Good access is provided by the Stuart Highway and 28 km of well formed gravel road. The Adelaide to Darwin railway line is situated 80 km to the west.
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GEOLOGY & MINERALISATION
Peculiar Knob is situated in the Mount Woods Inlier within a sequence of Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic metasediments, deformed granitoids and granite. Rock types include banded iron formation (“BIF”), various forms of gneiss and metapelite and migmatite. A zone of high grade iron ore mineralisation is contained in two sub-parallel elongate lensoidal bodies of massive specular (micaceous) haematite, also known as specularite that are thought to have formed as a result of hydrothermal enrichment of a metamorphosed BIF. The main haematite body has a north-east to south-west trend and pinches and swells along a strike dimension of approximately 1100 metres. It generally dips steeply to the north-west however dip reversals are evident in some places. The mineralisation has been closed off at the north-eastern end but remains open at depth. The body may extend along strike to the south-west beyond the limits of the drilling but is considerably thinner at that end.
The Peculiar Knob deposit has been defined by a program of sytematic drilling completed by WPG in early 2007. A block model estimate based these results and those from previous drilling gave a resource of 19 million tonnes at a grade of 63.7% iron as per the following table:
Category |
Million Tonnes |
Fe
% |
P
% |
SiO2
% |
Al2O3
% |
LOl
% |
Measured resource |
13.4 |
63.7 |
0.01 |
7.4 |
0.3 |
0.5 |
Indicated resource |
4.1 |
63.4 |
0.02 |
8.2 |
0.2 |
0.4 |
Inferred resource |
1.5 |
64.5 |
0.02 |
6.0 |
0.3 |
0.3 |
Total resource |
19.0 |
63.7 |
0.02 |
7.5 |
0.3 |
0.5 |
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
WPG intends to develop the Peculiar Knob deposit as a Direct Shipping Ore ("DSO") mine, supplying high grade ore to the Asian market, at a rate of up to 2 million tonnes per annum. The Company has set a strategic goal of commencing production during 2009. A mining lease has been granted and the Company is well advanced with infrastructure planning.
The proposed configuration of the mine is shown below.
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