Work is underway to produce a higher grade flotation concentrate feed in order to optimize the purification process and provide extra high purity material for testing.
Information from the optimization work will be used in flow sheet and the preliminary economic assessment (PEA), which is planned to be carried out in the fourth quarter.
The PEA data will include open pit mining methods, metallurgy and processing, infrastructure, environment, manpower requirements, marketing and price assumptions, capital and operating costs, life of mine plan and execution plan.
SGS Canada commenced metallurgical testing of two five-ton mini-bulk samples from the East and West graphite pipes of the graphite deposit in June at its facility in Lakefield, Ontario.
Zenyatta Market Development vice president Bharat Chahar said: "The recent work has produced high purity graphite material which has been sent to various potential customers for testing and evaluation and will be sent to others in the coming days.
"Test work completed to date has confirmed the Zenyatta graphite to have a very good crystal structure (hexagonal) with a very desirable real density of 2.25 g/cc."
The company said it will continue to develop the Albany graphite deposit.
According to consulting firm RPA estimates, the graphite deposit hosts indicated mineral resources of 25.1 million tons at an average grade of 3.89% graphitic carbon (Cg).
Inferred mineral resources defined to date are estimated to be 20.1 million tons at an average grade of 2.2% Cg.
