Page 75 - pd280-Mar20-mag-web_Neat

Tasman hardened for SA tilt

ong-time South Australian resources tentially there is some form of sulphide,” form like multiple additives rolled into one,
Lsector resident Tasman Resources Ltd Tasman chairman Greg Solomon told boosting among other performance char-
has often revelled in the attention of big Paydirt. acteristics surface abrasion resistance,
companies. “They are not super strong magnetic and produces extremely low permeability
Rio Tinto Ltd was once a partner at the responses and they are not super strong while improving strength properties.
Vulcan IOCGU project, 30km north of gravity responses, so we don’t expect that Solomon said developing and marketing
Olympic Dam, which is now subject to the they’re going to be very high in iron ore, EdenCrete® had taken longer than antici-
Lake Torrens farm-in/JV between Tasman but in the area we are in, the similarity be- pated but having committed to the cause
and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. tween some of these other deposits and Eden now had a product like no one else.
Fortescue can earn an initial 51% inter- the responses we have got – it is arguable “It would take any other competitor a
est in EL6416 by spending $4 million on that it may be similar. long time to get where we are today. We
exploration within three years, with a mini- “Until we drill it, we won’t know but it has expected the development process to be
mum of $1 million to be committed before a reasonable chance that it could be sul- complex but not take this long,” Solomon
it can withdraw without equity. phides. If it is copper-gold sulphides that said.
Work on the Lake Torrens JV will focus would be very interesting, as the model- “It is cleaner, greener, cheaper and
on developing a comprehensive tene- ling suggests that it is reasonably shallow, stronger and the market is potentially co-
ment-wide geological model to define drill which is obviously important,” he said. lossal. We managed to get some of the
hole targets this year. Meanwhile, Tasman Modelling suggests that the elevated largest institutions to invest in us in 2016
also places a high priority on drilling at its concentration of sulphides may occur as there is nothing like it in the market.”
100%-owned Pernatty IOCG project. between 250m and 500m depth, with It was a “euphoric rise” for Eden on the
As far as real estate goes, there are Solomon saying if that was the case then back of the carbon nanotubes in concrete
few places as hot as Pernatty’s location Tasman’s two potential deposits may be concept back in 2015/16, with the com-
– 20km south-east of Carrapateena and sighted at about 370-400m. pany market capped at $330 million and
on a trend of the Gawler Craton hosting Pernatty presents an opportunity for trading at 23c/share in late 2016.
discoveries in the ilk of Fremantle Doctor, Tasman to single-handedly achieve some The last few years has seen interest
Khamsin, Oak Dam and BHP Ltd’s recent results, given the much shallower nature of grow in EdenCrete® through trials and
Oak Dam West find. the prospective ground compared with the now there are signs of suitors recognising
For Tasman, 12 months of toil complet- terrain it holds to the north with Fortescue. the potential and starting to materially con-
ing an extensive EM survey over the Pern- “Trying to do exploration up in that north- vert their interests.
atty licence has delivered five targets. ern area; each one of those holes was “There were different roadblocks that
“It is 40km from Mt Gunson which was costing somewhere between $350,000- arose and it has been hard to find ways
mined from the 1880s up through until the 500,000 and the basement wasn’t even around them. It hasn’t been easy, but I
late 1990s. This licence came up and was starting until 600-700m, so it is a tough think we are very close to having a good
directly in that corridor where all the bor- place for a small company,” Solomon said. number of channels open up and we can
nite is largely found and all the deposits in “This [Pernatty] is much shallower and expand rapidly. I think in the next 3-6
the corridor occur where bornite is found. can possibly be accessed with RC drilling. months we will really start to see a pipeline
There has never been any drilling on the We are hoping by mid-year or thereabouts of things come through. I can’t say which
licence and it is totally unexplored. We’ve to be drilling, everything is lining up to do one exactly will be the catalyst for us,” Sol-
come up with conductors, which are dif- so.” omon said.
ficult to explain other than to say that po- As much as Solomon would like to dem- At the time of print, the Town of Breck-
onstrate showings of the next enridge, Colorado, announced it would in-
Carrapateena at Pernatty, clude EdenCrete® in the concrete its uses
the glint in his eye suggests for construction and renovations (side-
a value-boosting announce- walks, driveways, walls).
ment from Eden Innovations Eden has received good traction in the
Ltd is not far away. US with 18 states providing D.O.T. approv-
Tasman owns nearly 40% als for EdenCrete® for standard concrete
of Eden, the outfit respon- mixes. Twelve states are also onboard
sible for EdenCrete® prod- with EdenCrete® Pz which is used in en-
ucts, which are currently be- riched pozzolanic concrete mixes, which
ing trialled worldwide. often include a high percentage of flyash
Solomon said there were a or blast furnace slag and lower volumes of
number of trials at advanced Portland cement, meaning potentially low-
stages testing EdenCrete®; er costs and higher performing cement.
a carbon nanotube-enriched While the US interest in Eden is strong,
liquid additive which ele- India, which has huge quantities of very
vates concrete structures to cheap flyash, is also a key market, as is
new levels of strength and Korea and countries in Europe and the
toughness. Middle East, giving Eden the opportunity
Eden is ahead of the curve to participate in the global cement industry
in this type of innovation. that is edging towards $US1 trillion a year.
When added to concrete
mixtures it is said to per- – Mark Andrews
Drilling at Pernatty is poised for the first half of 2020

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT MaRCH 2020 Page 75