Sunrise Resources plc is pleased to advise that it has now taken delivery of all remaining surface and drill samples from its Pioche Sepiolite Project in Nevada.
The samples were collected by Tolsa USA, Inc. ("Tolsa"), during the period it held the project under option from the Company (June 2022 to December 2024). The samples have a cumulative weight of approximately one tonne and have been shipped from Tolsa's head office in Spain. The samples come from surface trenching and two periods of drilling using auger and sonic drill rigs.
The sepiolite samples will now be used for additional in-house testing by the Company's partner in the project, Tom Powell, an expert in sepiolite, and to provide material to various parties who have expressed interest in the Pioche Project since Tolsa's withdrawal from the project at the end of 2024.
The results from Company's work on a small subset of samples shipped in advance of the main consignment were reported in a news release dated 15 April 2025. Those results compare very favourably with commercially available sepiolite in the US and confirm the commercial potential of the large sepiolite clay deposits at Pioche across a range of applications including critical saltwater applications in the valuable oil and gas drilling market.
Since then, the Company has carried out 3D modelling of the sepiolite horizons drilled by Tolsa. This work has demonstrated that the main sepiolite horizon can be correlated between drill holes, despite their wide spacing.
A drill plan and schematic drill cross sections can be found at the end of this news release, illustrating the large near surface extent of the main sepiolite horizon and a second, lower sepiolite horizon, seen only in deeper drill holes.
Commenting today, Executive Chairman Patrick Cheetham said:
"It has taken rather longer than anticipated to obtain these samples, but we are now able to move our discussions with interested parties to the next stage.
"We are very encouraged to see a high level of interest in the Project from both US domestic companies, as well as international industrial mineral companies and feel that Tolsa's work has added substantially to the value of the Project over and above the US$1.2 million option purchase price that was first agreed with Tolsa back in 2022, prior to any exploration taking place."