Australian mining company MRG Metals announced on Friday that samples taken from its concession at Nhacutse, which is located in its Southern Corridor project in the southern Gaza province, confirm that Nhacutse contains very high grade heavy mineral sands.

Seventeen samples were taken that show an estimated 140 million cubic meters of soil with more than five percent total heavy mineral content. According to company president Andrew Van Der Zwan, this means that "MRG is confident that Nhacutse could provide a much higher grade resource than we originally targeted."

Andrew Van Der Zwan added that "given the depth of the resource that drilling is detailing, we could be looking at a 200 million tonne high-grade resource at Nhacutse."

MRG Metals will now launch a tender to find an independent company to calculate a formal mineral resource estimate. The company also announced that a mineralogical study of the samples will be reported soon. Following Friday's announcement, the company's shares on the Australian Securities Exchange jumped 12.5%.