South African mining investment company Armadale Capital (AIM:ACP) recently announced the preliminary discovery of high grade graphite at its Mahenge Liandu Graphite Project in south east Tanzania.
The discovery follows the recently commenced drilling program at Mahenge, which is continuing on site and is expected to be completed in 3 to 4 weeks.
William Frewen, Chairman of Armadale, said: “This preliminary discovery of high-grade coarse flake graphite mineralization underpins our belief that Mahenge Liandu offers significant upside opportunity.”
Frewen also explained: ”Timing wise, it could not be better for a nascent natural graphite explorer. Surging global demand for electric vehicles and power storage utilities are directly driving lithium-ion battery manufacturers to increase output at an accelerating rate (graphite is used in lithium-ion battery as the anode).”
Mahenge Liandu Graphite Project
The Mahenge Liandu project is located in the Ulanga District in south east Tanzania, approximately 300km south west of Morogoro and 10km from the town Mahenge.
Armadale indicates that the area is highly prospective for graphite with Mahenge Liandu located immediately to the east of Kibaran’s Epanko project.
Resource estimation and graphite quality demonstration at the Mahenge Liandu Graphite Project should be completed in late 2016, Armadale notes.
Tanzania Graphite
Tanzania’s largest graphite deposits are located in the central and east southern regions of the country.
At the end of 2015, The Tanzanian Ministry of Energy and Minerals (MEM) announced that Tanzania will soon become one of the largest producers of graphite in the world, due to recent and abundant discoveries of graphite fields across the country.
These discoveries come mainly from Australia based graphite developers, Magnis Resources (ASX:MNS), Volt Resources (ASX:VRC) and Kibaran Resources (ASX:KNL).
