Brilliant Sands Inc. has received extremely positive results from its Alberta Project located in central Alberta, Canada, according to the company. The Alberta Project is in close proximity to major infrastructure and well positioned to supply significant amounts of high-quality frac sand to many actively producing oil/gas companies throughout Alberta, Canada, and beyond, the company said.
Preliminary exploration for a significant portion Alberta Project land holdings is complete. Initial analysis of outcrop samples conducted by Loring Laboratories found that the 20-40 and 40-70 fractions exhibited roundness values of 0.7 and 0.6, respectively, while sphericity values were 0.9 to 0.8, respectively. The percentage of silica in these hand samples measured from 91 percent to almost 95 percent silica, even though they were gathered on the ground surface in weathered material. More representative and uncontaminated samples collected by hand auguring and/or drilling below the ground surface are anticipated to contain near 100 percent silica.
This phase of the exploration program also involved the investigation of high-priority lands using near surface geophysics and hand auger sampling techniques. Geophysical resistivity equipment was utilized to execute nearly 30 km of geophysical survey lines. Hand auger sampling yielded over 30 exploration samples to be taken for further analysis out of nearly 70 sampling locations in the targeted zone, all of which are currently in the process of being sampled.
Marc J. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of Brilliant Sands, commented, “Obviously, I am thrilled with the results from our McClelland and Alberta projects. The project exploration findings continue to reaffirm our belief that each site may host hundreds of millions of tons of high quality frac sand. The results received from our McClelland project, our new findings from the Alberta project and the ever increasing demand for quality, cost-efficient silica sand makes it an exciting time for Brilliant Sands.”
Drilling, sampling and near-surface geophysical surveys continue across the Alberta Project lands. It is expected that Brilliant Sands will initiate the mine development permitting process in coming months in order to begin production as quickly as possible, the company said.