A Pleasant Surprise
Zenyatta Finds Graphite while Exploring Ontario for Nickel-Copper
By Greg Klein

On completing its December 2010 IPO of $9.9 million, Zenyatta Ventures TSXV:ZEN began 2011 with big ambitions. The company set out to explore its Albany Project in northern Ontario, which may sit on a structure related to the Mid-Continent Rift, home of a number of significant deposits around Lake Superior. Zenyatta hoped for a nickel-copper-polymetallic deposit comparable to the Norilsk Nickel mine in Siberia, Vale‘s Voisey’s Bay operation in Labrador or Rio Tinto‘s Eagle deposit in Michigan. So far, that goal has proved elusive. But what the Albany Project (aka Arc of Fire) drill results do show, says President/CEO Aubrey Eveleigh, might be equally compelling—the possibility of an exceptionally large deposit containing the exceptionally unusual occurrence of vein-type graphite.

Vein (or lump) graphite is the rarest, hence most expensive, type of natural graphite. At the other end of the scale, amorphous graphite is the type most commonly found and is widely used for steelmaking, auto parts, sports equipment and other applications. Flake graphite is essential to the emerging markets that include solar panels, fuel cells, pebble-bed nuclear reactors and the lithium-ion batteries that are becoming standard for electronic devices and electric vehicles. But little is spoken of vein graphite—likely because there’s so little to speak of.

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