The company, which listed in April 2022 with plans to develop downstream processing at Collie, secured a 15.3 million tonnes at 6% total graphitic carbon resource from Comet Resources and has grown that threefold to 49.3Mt at 6.5% TGC for 3.2Mt contained graphite using a 2% TGC cut-off.
Within that is an indicated resource of 11.5Mt at 7.5% TGC - enough for the company to get on with mine planning, with the ultimate aim to feed its Collie battery anode material plant.
IG6 reports the fine flake mineralisation was "ideally suited for battery anode materials and the lithium-ion battery market".
Second largest in Australia
The total resource is exceeded only by Renascor Resources' 87.4Mt at 7.5% TCG Siviour deposit in South Australia, which is one of the largest globally, although Kingsland Minerals has recently thrown its hat into the ring with a conservative exploration target of 200-250Mt at 8-11% TGC for its Leliyn discovery in the Northern Territory.
Just a fraction of IG6's tenements near Hopetoun have been drilled, and just 20% of its targets have seen the drillbit, so IG6 is confident it can continue to grow resources with demand.
More than 10% of today's resource update came from the new Mason Bay deposit, which is just 2km east of the legacy Springdale resource and contains 4.3Mt at 6.7% TCG for 300,000t graphite.
Exceeding expectations
The company said the resource upgrade had exceeded expectations considering it was based on just 20,574m of new drilling.
The program, testing targets from a 2019 airborne electromagnetic geophysical survey delivered four new discoveries, but only Mason Bay has been upgraded to resource status so far.
Speaking to MNN last month, the company had hoped to deliver two new resources and two exploration targets, but as managing director Andrew Worland noted this morning, it was still just scratching the surface at Springdale.
IG6 shares were last traded at 19c, capitalising it at $32 million.
