Aim- and ASX-listed Sovereign Metals has initiated a follow-up 400 m spaced drill programme at its tier one Kasiya rutile/graphite project, in Malawi, which will focus on determining the boundaries and extent of mineralisation north of the known mineral resource estimate (MRE) area.

The hand-auger drill programme, comprising more than 70 holes, has been designed to target areas where mineralisation was identified in earlier wide-spaced regional hand-auger drilling.

The target area is up to 20 km north of the current MRE boundary.

Drilling is currently under way and will be completed in the coming weeks. Four hand-auger teams have been deployed under the supervision of Sovereign’s in-country technical team.

Samples will initially be processed in the company’s own Lilongwe laboratory facility and then shipped for final analysis at certified international laboratories. Results from the drill programme are expected in the coming weeks.

In February, Sovereign announced regional hand-auger drilling south of the Kasiya MRE footprint had identified significant strike extensions of approximately 8 km across a number of parallel mineralised zones ranging from 400 m to 2 km in width.

All newly defined mineralisation in the south remains open at depth owing to the limitations of the hand-auger drilling method but are expected to continue to the saprock boundary normally between 20 and 30 vertical metres from surface. The multiple mineralised zones identified remain open along strike both to the north and south.

These results indicate the potential to expand the already significant, high-grade rutile and graphite MRE at Kasiya.

Kasiya’s current MRE of 1.8-billion tonnes at 1% rutile and 1.4% graphite comprises broad and contiguous zones of high-grade rutile and graphite that occur across an area of over 201 km².

Sovereign says the optimisation programme for the Kasiya project continues in conjunction with its strategic investor Rio Tinto.