RUTILE

RUTILE

Overview

Sovereign has identified a potentially globally significant, strategic rutile province across its large Malawi ground holding. The Malawi Rutile Province features two confirmed, discrete rutile mineralisation styles hosted respectively in sand and saprolite (soft, friable weathered material) which are both amenable to conventional processing.

Rutile mineralisation identified to date has generally not been spatially constrained by drilling at either of the two main prospects, Kasiya (saprolite) and the Bua Channel (sand).

The Company is targeting large resources that could support long-life, large-scale rutile production.

Kasiya Deposit

An Emerging Company Maker

Kasiya has the characteristics of a company making asset: large, high-grade and at surface.

Kasiya presents a mineralised zone of +5.5km strike length with surface widths averaging +2.5km. The mineralised zone continues to be open along strike in both directions and open laterally to the south east.

All mineralisation occurs from surface and is hosted in soft, free-dig, friable saprolite. A large percentage of intercepts remain open at depth with high-grade rutile mineralisation interpreted to extend to the base of the soft saprolite at around 25m.

A maiden JORC Mineral Resource Estimate is on for late Q3 2020.

Conventional Processing Proven

Metallurgical test-work with saprolite material has demonstrated that very high-quality rutile meeting or exceeding typical market specifications can be produced.

Standout attributes include;

• Rutile product grade of 96.0% TiO2 at a recovered rutile grade of 1.16%
• Highly favourable grain size distribution (d50 = 123 micron)
• Exceptionally low uranium and thorium levels
• Exceptionally low chromium levels
• Exceptionally low zirconium levels

Bulk-scale metallurgical test-work has commenced on a 1 tonne representative sample from Kasiya.

A New Rutile Province Discovered

Sovereign has identified a potentially globally significant, strategic rutile province across its large Malawi ground holding.

The Malawi Rutile Province features two confirmed, discrete rutile mineralisation styles; residual saprolite which is soft, friable weathered material (i.e. Kasiya) and traditional placer sand (i.e. Bua Channel).

Both material types are proven to be amenable to conventional processing.
Rutile mineralisation is not spatially constrained by drilling at either key prospects: Kasiya (saprolite) or Bua Channel (sand).

Huge Exploration Upside

Regional exploration continues to identify new rutile prospects. Sovereign has a significant number of untested targets and a large amount of unexplored ground across the Company’s very large ground package.

The majority of key prospects and targets are located in close proximity to key infrastructure.

Bua Channel

Bua channel is a high-grade, rutile dominant, sand-hosted, placer deposit within the emerging Malawi Rutile Province.

Air-core and hand-auger drilling results have extended rutile mineralisation to over 8km length.

The Bua Channel is geologically well defined over a total length of ~50km. Planning and permitting for a drilling program to test the remaining ~42km length of the channel is in progress.