Petratherm Ltd (ASX:PTR) has found a new type of high-grade titanium mineralisation through exploration drilling at its Muckanippie project in South Australia.

Four holes were drilled in greenfield areas – away from the Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery – with the work yielding titanium-rich heavy mineral (HM) mineralisation, hosted in saprolite clay.

All four returned thick and high-grade results following trial HM separation test, including 44 metres at 29.4% HM from surface to end of hole at the Nardoo prospect, 61 metres at 19.7% HM from surface to end of hole at the Duke prospect, and 45 metres at 27.0% HM from six metres at the Claypan prospect.

Petratherm is also excited about the underlying features of this area since HM mineralisation at Duke and Nardoo appear along a strong magnetic trend over 16km.

This means additional work could reveal mineralisation along the whole trend.

Titanium mineralisation at Claypan is connected to discrete magnetic features, but the company has hypothesised that untested non-magnetic zones could also pull up similar mineralisation.

CEO Peter Reid said there was a lot to be excited about, based on this discovery.

“The Titanium Heavy Minerals hosted in saprolite clays at Muckanippie represent a new style of mineralisation that we believe has tremendous upside potential,” he said.

“The drill results show that the mineralisation is regionally extensive and has potential for large tonnage free dig ore.

“Importantly intercepts occur over wide thicknesses, making them favourable for open pit free dig mining. Saprolite-hosted HM deposits have the potential to be mined and processed using very similar mining techniques to traditional HMS deposits.”

Petratherm shares were trading at 30 cents at 12:26pm today.

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