Pilgangoora

The Pilgangoora lithium project, located in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia, 120 kilometres south of Port Hedland, is wholly owned by Altura Mining Limited. It has been described as being a significant discovery that ranks highly with other hard rock lithium deposits globally. The Pilgangoora deposit has an additional commercial value in that it is easily accessible to port facilities and infrastructure.

Widespread Drilling of the Pilgangoora Deposit Occurred During 2011
and 2012
The Pilgangoora deposit of hard rock lithium was the site of extensive explorative drilling throughout 2011 and 2012. Deeper drilling of the deposit has continued into 2013 as has a pre-feasibility study. Positive metallurgical studies of the spodumene ore have already been completed. The ore has been found to outcrop on 12 occasions where shallow spodumene bearing pegmatites have been successfully sampled.

Pilgangoora Lithium Resource Increased by 89 Percent in 2012
The JORC compliant lithium resource estimate at Pilgangoora was increased by 89 percent in October 2012. This increase brought the resource up to 25.16 million tonnes grading at 1.23 percent lithium oxide. Altura's original target of between 18 and 25 million tonnes grading from 1.3 to 1.6 percent lithium oxide has now been exceeded. The only difference being a slight reduction in the actual lithium oxide grade that has now been confirmed.

Pilgangoora Deposit Model Created With Micromine Software
The latest resource estimate takes the place of the November 2011 estimate that listed the resource as being 13.3 million tonnes grading at 1.21 percent lithium oxide. The change in the estimate figures is the result of the carrying out of an extensive reverse circulation drilling program undertaken by Altura's own staff based exploration team. This drilling program involved the construction of a three dimensional geological model created with the use of Micromine software. Altura Mining Limited is expecting a further increase of the resource estimate, and grade of lithium contained in the Pilgangoora deposit, as drilling of the pegmatite outcrops continue where to date only surface sampling has occurred.

Altura Considered Fast-tracking the Pilgangoora Project
Altura Mining Limited has been considering the fast-tracking of the development stage of the Pilgangoora lithium project after a scoping study revealed it would be capable of producing 150,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate annually with a grading of six percent lithium. The study showed this figure could be reached with the processing of 830,000 tonnes of ore a year.

Pilgangoora's Three Phase Scoping Study
Scoping work that is required to be undertaken before any mining can take place at the Pilgangoora project will involve three distinct phases. The first phase that has already been completed has involved the determining of the metallurgical and physical properties of the ore body, as well as the ease of recovery of the spodumene that contains the lithium. The results obtained from the stage one process have all been posirtive with no major concern being raised in the test crushing and milling of the ore. Beneficiation testing of the ore samples has also delivered encouraging results with successful magnetic separation of other elements. The lithium oxide concentrate produced so far has been in the area of between 7.12 and 6.89 percent. This testing was supervised by the independent specialist consultants Mineral Engineering Technical Services Pty Ltd (METS), based in Perth. Phase two will be concerned with grade of the lithium product, its mass balance and process design. Phase three will involve the costing parameters to develop mining of the deposit as well as the design of the mine going forward. All phases are due to be completed by the end of 2013.
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