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Amazon Mining Holding Plc (TSX-V:AMZ - News) ("Amazon" or
"The Company"), is pleased to announce the results for the initial
drilling campaign at the Apatita Phosphate project
located adjacent to Amazon's Cerrado Verde Potash
project in Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The programme consisted of 12 holes for a total of 1,022m of
HQ sized diamond core. (A location plan is shown in Figure 1 below)
The Company is encouraged by success on
two of three phosphate prospects tested at Apatita.
Phosphate values at the Alto da Serra and Nau de Guerra prospects (Figure 2) warrant further
drilling with substantial tonnage potential defined. Drilling in the two prospects
identified mineralized phosphate between 0.01% and 9.57% P2O5 with widths of
between 1m and 22m. The Company plans to continue drilling, targeting a
43-101 compliant resource estimate. In addition, Amazon will continue its
exploration on five other prospects that have been identified along a 30km
strike length by the regional mapping and surface grab sampling programme (Amazon's press release on Monday, 08 November
2010). Drilling at the Matutina prospect, located
over 5km away from the Alto da Serra and Nau de Guerra prospects, only
encountered low grade mineralization. Nine drill holes were completed in this
prospect.
Brazil is the world's second largest
importer of phosphate. In 2008, more than 45% of the 3.2Mt of P2O5 consumed
was imported. Early in 2010 Vale S.A. spent nearly 6 Billion US dollars
acquiring seven main phosphate assets. Six of which are located less than
250km away from Amazon's Cerrado Verde Potash
project. The P2O5 grade for Vale's recently acquired Brazilian phosphate
assets range from 5.45% to 11.12% P2O5.
The initial drilling at Apatita was primarily planned to define the width of
mineralized phosphate within the Areado group
(Sequence of flat lying sediments which unconformably
overlie the Verdete Slate unit (The Verdete Slate hosts the Cerrado
Verde Potash mineralization)). Table 1 shows a summary of Alto da Serra and Nau de Guerra
prospects drilling results with a 1.5% P2O5 cut off applied.
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Table 1
Apatita Project
Alto da Sera and Nau de Guerra Prospects
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Hole_ID Prospect from to width P2O5(1.5 % cut off)
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AP-MA-02 Alto da Serra 34m 52m 18m 3.00%
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including Alto da Serra 35m 40m 5m 6.09%
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Including Alto da Serra 37m 39m 2m 9.49%
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AP-MA-05 Nau de Guerra 4m 26m 22m 2.64%
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Including Nau de Guerra 10m 26m 16m 3.00%
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and Nau de Guerra 35m 36m 1m 8.43%
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AP-MA-06 Nau de Guerra 83m 90m 7m 3.88%
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Including Nau de Guerra 87m 90m 3m 6.35%
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(ii) The drillholes were not sampled from surface.
Alto da Serra
prospect surface mapping and grab sampling have identified a mineralized
surface expression of 4.5km2 and the 48 surface grab samples taken in this
prospect averaged 8.2% P2O5. AP-MA-02 drill hole completed in this prospect
highlights high grade potential (2m at 9.49% P2O5) and low grade bulk tonnage
potential (18m at 3.00% P2O5).
Nau de Guerra prospect surface mapping and
grab sampling have identified a mineralized surface expression of 4.8km2 and
the 64 surface grab samples taken in this prospect averaged 6.45% P2O5. Drill
holes completed have intercepted high grade sedimentary units with drill hole
AP-MA-06 returning 7m at 3.88% P2O5 including 3m at 6.35% and drill hole
AP-MA-05 returning 16m at 3% P2O5 and 1m at 8.43%. These two holes are
located approximately 2km apart in flat lying sedimentary beds.
All mineralized phosphate identified to
date has been from the mapping of the sides and tops of the 50m to 200m high
hills. These hills which represent the sedimentary rocks of the Areado group will present minimal stripping ratio from an
open pit mining perspective. The Areado sedimentary
package is also a very soft and permeable package of rocks that will be
amenable to "free dig" and/or minimal blasting along with potential
in situ leaching methods of mining.
President & CEO Cristiano
Veloso commented "Given the favourable mining factors combined with the positive
initial metallurgical testwork (reported in the
November 8, 2010 press release), Amazon will explore the possibility of
producing conventional fertilizers such as SSP, STP, MAP and DAP from the
phosphate at Apatita. In addition, the Company will
pursue the possibility of producing an innovative ThermoPotash
Phosphate product. Mitsui has been selling ThermoPhosphate
in Brazil since the 1960's. The combination of phosphate with ThermoPotash could substantially increase the potential
market for Amazon's proposed product. Potentially, manufacturing this P-K
product would also represent limited additional capital and operational
expenditures as both potash and phosphate rocks would be processed in the
same rotary kiln already required for ThermoPotash."
Competent Person and QA/QC
The technical content of this news
release has been prepared by Mr. Beau Nicholls, MAIG, Consulting
Geologist, who is a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian National
Instrument 43-101. 1m samples were split in half using a diamond core saw
with half the core sent to SGS Geosol laboratory
for analysis by X-ray fluorescence
About Amazon
Amazon Mining is a mineral exploration
and development company founded and led by Brazilians since 2005. The company
is focused on the development of Cerrado Verde
project. Cerrado Verde is source of a potash rich
rock from which Amazon plans to produce a slow-release, non-chloride,
multi-nutrient, fertilizer product. Amazon Mining is a UK public company with
shares listed on the TSX Venture Exchange since November 2007.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of
Amazon Mining Holding Plc, Cristiano Veloso, President and CEO.
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