Director Nick Johansen said all development work at Mahenge Liandu was going well and the company expected to make a decision to mine early in 2019 after which it was targeting production within 12-18 months.

The diamond drilling programme included eight holes for a total 489m, with the company noting that all holes intersected wide intervals of high-grade mineralisation from surface with up to 67m thickness.

The programme also validated the 2017 RC drilling programme with good core recoveries, which will be used to produce representative graphite concentrates for marketing to prospective off-take partners and for refining the process flowsheet.

With the current RC drill programme, Armadale is aiming to upgrade the current JORC resources of 51.1 million tonnes at 9.3% total graphitic carbon to probably and proven reserves.

The company has also completed a 10sq.km topographic survey of the proposed mining lease, as well as all field work for environmental and social baseline surveys.

Most activities are currently focused on competing the environmental impact assessment (EIA), relocation action plan (RAP) and valuation survey to submit before the end of September, which form the basis of its development plan.

Armadale's shares were up 0.78% Wednesday to 1.69p (US2.2c).