Drilling has commenced at Richmond and Julia Creek with an 800-hole, 17,500-metre drilling program worth $1.2 million.

Lilyvale forms part of the greater Richmond project.

The project covers 1520 square kilometres and is close to existing infrastructure including a gas pipeline, the Flinders Hwy and the Mount Isa-Townsville railway linked to Townsville Port.

The resource of 2,579 million tonnes of grading 0.32% vanadium is hosted in a soft oxide marine sediment four metres from the surface.

Vanadium is a hard, silvery-grey, ductile, and malleable transition metal.

Intermin Resources Ltd has received positive metallurgical test work results from the Lilyvale prospect area.

Multiple tests utilising gravity, screening and flotation have resulted in concentrate grades averaging 1.6% vanadium at an overall recovery of 73%.

These results are in line with the target grade of >1.5% vanadium and >70% recovery.

Further optimisation test work is ongoing with more than four tonnes of sample to be transported to China to generate additional concentrate for downstream processing test work.

Interim own five exploration permits, north of Julia Creek and also north-west of Richmond and the global inferred resource for the permits totals 2.579 billion tonnes grading 0.32% vanadium pentoxide at a 0.29% cut-off grade, making it one of the largest vanadium deposits in the world.