THUNDER BAY – BUSINESS – Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (“Zenyatta”, “ZEN” or “Company”) (TSXV: ZEN) is pleased to provide an update on its now fully permitted 2019 bulk sampling program on the Albany Graphite Project, located in northern Ontario near the communities of Constance Lake First Nation and Hearst. The main purpose of the program is to recover a large sample of the graphite mineralization in order to generate graphene product samples for market development purposes. The program is expected to generate up to 40 tons of 99.8% purity graphene pre-cursor material. The total budget for the program is $3 million, to be funded with the proceeds of the recently completed flow-through financing.
“This bulk sampling program is critical to the further development of the exciting graphene product opportunity that we have confirmed with our research partners over the past few months. We now have numerous potential customers requesting product samples to test in various new graphene-based technologies and composites in our 5 identified verticals. This work will also help us discover the market value of ZEN’s graphene products.” stated Dr. Francis Dubé Co-CEO.
The Company has now received the final two permits required from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines: one for permission to collect the 990 tonne sample and offer graphene produced from the sample for sale to prospective future customers; and second, an exploration permit to drill the large diameter reverse circulation drill holes required to recover the sample from the overburden-covered Albany Deposit.
The Company has also received permission from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to build three ice bridge creek crossings along the proposed winter access road to the drill site which will largely utilize pre-existing forestry roads, a bridge and the 2013 winter trail. Now that the program is fully permitted and funded, preparation of the winter road will get underway immediately. The drilling is expected to be completed by the end of March 2019 following which processing work on the bulk sample can begin.
Peter Wood, P. Eng., P. Geo. is the qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed, prepared and supervised the preparation of the technical information contained in this news release.
