Cloud Nine Halloysite-Kaolin
Deposit
The Cloud Nine Halloysite-Kaolin Deposit is located 300 kilometres east of Perth in Western Australia and has demonstrated large scale resources of both halloysite and kaolin.
In May 2021, the Company announced a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) of 207Mt of kaolinised granite, which includes separate domains containing 123Mt of bright-white kaolinite and 84Mt of kaolin/halloysite-bearing material.
The large-scale of the Mineral Resource places Cloud Nine as a globally significant halloysite project, and with exceptional growth potential remaining, given the deposit is open in all directions.
As part of the focused advancement of Cloud Nine, the Company has completed a series of close spaced drilling which has confirmed that both the thickness and brightness of the kaolinised granite is extremely consistent within the area tested. A near surface blanket, up to 28 metres thick, of this premium ultrabright product (>80 ISO-B), has been defined over an area approaching one square kilometre.
As noted above, the Cloud Nine Mineral Resource contains 123Mt of bright white kaolinite and 84Mt of kaolin-halloysite bearing material. A Pre-Feasibility Study for the initial development of the bright white kaolinite material has commenced, with results expected towards the end of Q2 2022.
The component of the Mineral Resource that contains kaolin-halloysite is subject to research work aimed at both extracting the halloysite commercially as well as investigations into new uses for halloysite. The Company is excited by the potential for halloysite to be used as an emissions reduction material, particularly with regards to methane emissions from cattle.
Further details of the research project are described in the CRC CARE R&D Project section.
