Oakdale Resources about to begin maiden drilling at South Australian halloysite-kaolin hotspot

Oakdale Resources Ltd (ASX:OAR) (FRA:F1S) is about to begin its maiden drilling program at the Gibraltar Project within South Australia’s halloysite-kaolin hotspot on the Eyre Peninsula. The company has received work program approvals from the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining and has secured the services of a South-Australian-based drilling contractor. An aircore drill rig and a geological team is set to mobilise to the project site, adjacent to Andromeda Metals Ltd’s (ASX:ADN) Mt Hope Kaolin-Halloysite Project, next week. Testing known kaolin occurrence The maiden shallow drill program of around 2,500 metres will test a known kaolin occurrence highlighted by historic auger drilling across the tenement. Oakdale is confident of achieving success with halloysite-kaolin exploration at Gibraltar owing to its proximity to Andromeda’s projects and in particular Mt Hope, which lies to the south. Oakdale’s upside Although the company’s share price has witnessed a multi-fold increase in recent months, the price and market cap are yet to catch-up with peers holding comparable project portfolios. The global market for kaolin is large and broad with applications from ceramics, cement, paints, polymers and porcelain as well as the low end of paper manufacture. Shares have increased from 0.3 cents on August 14 to 3.3 cents on September 7, a new high of almost three years, and today have traded up to 2.3 cents while the market cap is approximately $42.1 million. In comparison, Andromeda has seen an increase in market cap from $13 million when it first began exploring the region’s kaolin potential in 2018, to more than $250 million post the publication of a pre-feasibility study on the Great White project outlining the economic model for a proposed mine. That company’s shares have risen from 4.4 cents on August 28 to a new 10-year high of 18.5 cents a month later and today are trading at 16 cents. Oakdale’s South Australia tenure, highlighting the Gibraltar Project adjacent to Mt Hope. Resource estimate potential Oakdale’s upcoming drilling will test the extents of the kaolin occurrence on a nominal 100 x 100-metre grid spacing over the historic drilling, widening out to 200 x 200 metres to the south. Should the drilling return favourable results, the company will move quickly to estimate an inferred JORC-compliant resource. An east-west traverse of shallow auger drilling completed by Monax Mining Ltd in 2007 across the Gibraltar Tenement confirmed highly weathered granitic basement lithologies. Geological logs from multiple drill holes from this program have reported moderate thicknesses of kaolin mineralisation close to surface, with kaolinite and halloysite mineralisation noted in spectral analysis of drill samples. Oakdale’s Gibraltar Project tenure over regional TMI_1VD Magnetic Image and Andromeda’s Mt Hope project location. This occurrence sits on a north-south trending weak magnetic feature seen in the regional magnetics, which can be traced south to Andromeda’s Mt Hope Project.