Petratherm just keeps finding more strike at emerging Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery

Petratherm drilling has extended the strike of its Rosewood heavy minerals discovery after returning intersections with higher grades than previously intersected.

Mineralisation at Petratherm’s Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery has been extended by drilling. Pic: Getty Images

Special Report: Petratherm has extended the strike at its Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery in South Australia by a massive 1.6km and hit higher grades as one of the most promising titanium finds in Australia in years continues to grow.

• Petratherm drilling extends Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery by 1.6km northwards 
• Drilling returns high-grade results, including 26m at 17.2% heavy minerals from 7m
• Assays pending for a further 63 holes with bulk sample test work to get underway shortly

The first 10 holes in the 73-hole aircore program at the Muckanippie project returned numerous intersections with higher grades than previously intersected such as:

• 26m grading 17.2% heavy minerals from a down-hole depth of 7m including 6m at 36.4% HM from 27m (25RW002)
• 32m at 11.1% HM from 10m including 3m at 22.7% HM from 11m (25RW003); and
• 15m at 11.5% HM from 6m including 5m at 20.9% HM from 7m (25RW004).

Mineralisation at Rosewood East now extends at least 3.6km in a north-south direction with Petratherm (ASX:PTR) noting that it remains open to the north. The northernmost hole returning an 8m zone at 13.1% HM from 6m.

The results also support and upgrade previous drilling indicating widespread shallow, high-grade HM mineralisation at Rosewood.

Mineralogy results to date indicate the Rosewood HM prospect has a very high, on average >95% valuable heavy mineral content that is composed primarily of high titanium dioxide minerals.

“Importantly, these results also confirm the high-grade continuity and thickness of the prospect over a very large area including right up to the extent of current drilling,” chief executive officer Peter Reid said.

“On this basis, we would anticipate future step out Phase 3 exploration drilling in the coming weeks will continue to identify additional high-grade mineralisation and extend the potential size of the exciting Rosewood discovery.”

Rosewood prospect drill holes. Pic: Petratherm

Rosewood discovery

The company first found that Rosewood has the potential to host HM in September 2024 when outcropping sampling returned between 10-50% titanium dioxide.

This led to re-assaying of historical, wide-spaced drilling which confirmed that heavy mineral sands are present.

Subsequent drilling returned encouraging HM intersections over a continuous 15km2 area while the mineralisation lends itself to free-digging with potential for valuable HM to be separated using standard wet concentration techniques  typical of heavy mineral sands operations.

The 73-hole aircore program that was drilled in April 2025 was carried out along a 9km east-west trend, extending multiple north-south lines to the north up to 1.6km.

Drilling also included two infill lines ~400m either side of a line spanning a 3.6km interval where previous drilling identified high HM concentrations with the aim of better characterising the grade, thickness and continuity of mineralisation between holes in the Rosewood East area.

Results are currently pending for the remaining 63 holes.

Reid added that bulk sample test work will get underway shortly to inform separation processing and will produce the company’s initial HM sample products. 

“This will be a key milestone and will go a long way to demonstrating the potential future commercial viability of the project.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Petratherm, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing. 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Originally published as Petratherm just keeps finding more strike at emerging Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery