Allana keeps growing Dallol

Allana Potash (AAA-V) continues to define what is shaping into a world-class potash play in Ethiopia.

The company has grabbed the market’s attention over the last year with shallow-depth intercepts of up to 37.8 % potassium chloride (KCl), and now Allana says it has hit upon new mineralization in the southwestern part of its Dallol potash project in Ethiopia’s northeastern Danakil depression.

The zone was intersected by one drill hole which returned a highlight intercept of 4 metres grading 29.80% KCl.

That mineralization continues the project’s ability, thus far, to yield shallow mineralization as the drill hit KCl at a depth of just 125.2 metres.

The highlight intercept came out of the shallower Sylvinite zone, which overall returned 6.5 metres of 24.79% KCl.

The hole, however, continued down and struck a lower-grade Kainitite zone as well. That zone was struck at a depth of 168.2 metres and returned 5 metres of 20.29% KCl.

Allana says the location of the hole bodes well for increasing the project’s overall resource in an upcoming resource estimate update.

“This region was previously unexplored with no previous drilling,” Farhad Abasov, Allana’s president and CEO, said in a statement. The hole will be incorporated into data for the company’s new National Instrument 43-101 technical report, expected to be issued around late May.

The latest hole was collared 1 km southwest of hole 8, which hit mineralization at 164 metres and returned 4.1 metres at 24.6% KCl and 2 metres of 31.58% KCl.

Allana says the latest results are similar to those from hole 8, as well as holes 6 and 11, as they all delineate an area of potash mineralization roughly 5-km long by 4-km wide.

The zone would be better understood once results from five other holes come in. Those assays are currently pending.

Allana says it expects the area to add significantly to the project’s resources.

Dallol currently has inferred resources of 73.9 million tonnes of kainitite mineralization at 61.7% kainite and 31.3 million tonnes of sylvinite resource at 25.4% sylvite. Combined, that gives the company 105.2 million tonnes with a composite grade of 20.8% KCl.

That resource estimate was completed in 2008 and did not consider the southwestern section of the property.

In Toronto on April 26 – the day the news was released – the company’s shares rose 6% or 11¢ to $1.91 on 2.5 million shares traded.