i-minerals Completes Drilling of Bovill Kaolin Project

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- i-minerals inc. (TSX.V: IMA) (Pink Sheets: IMAHF) (the "Company") announces that further to its press release of September 29, 2011 the drill program designed to upgrade portions of the Bovill Kaolin Project from an inferred resource to an indicated resource is complete.  A total of 21 holes at WBL Pt Area  ("WBL") and 45 holes at Middle Ridge have been completed on 200-foot centers and the drill demobilized. WBL and Middle Ridge were selected to be the focus of resource quality upgrades based upon prior exploration success and excellent access. Core is currently being logged and sampled.  One quarter of the core will be subjected to metallurgical separation techniques undertaken at the University of Idaho to determine the total clay content as well as the individual halloysite and kaolinite contents.  Material balances, including the quartz + K-feldspar fraction, are then calculated and the kaolinite and halloysite samples photographed using a high powered Scanning Electromagnetic Microscope to confirm the success of the separation.  This process will allow the identification of halloysite-rich sections given the halloysite content may vary both from hole-to-hole as well as within a given hole.  Metallurgical work to date has yielded halloysite concentrations from trace levels to as much as 13%.

As noted in the December 1, 2010 press release, previous drilling had resulted in an inferred resource contained of 38.4 million tons of primary clay in four areas: WBL, Middle Ridge, Kelly's Hump and Scablands.  The associated Preliminary Economic Analysis ("PEA") contemplated the primary clays would be mined at a rate of about 900 ton per day.  This mining rate, if applied to the inferred resource of 8.9 million tons as estimated by SRK for the WBL and the Middle Ridge areas only, would support a minimum of 28 years of mining activity. It should be noted that this preliminary assessment is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable such resources to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary assessment will be realized.  Once all of the analytical and metallurgical work is completed the Company intends to engage SRK to complete a pre-feasibility study on the WBL and Middle Ridge sections of the Bovill Kaolin Project.  Successful completion of a pre-feasibility study would result in the resources defined in the study being classified as "Probable Reserves."

Given the time required to receive complete assays and undertake all of the metallurgical work, it is expected the prefeasibility study will be completed in late Q2 or early Q3 2012.

A. Lamar Long, CPG, is a qualified person ("QP") for i-minerals inc. and has reviewed and approved the contents of this release.

About i-minerals inc.

i-minerals' Helmer-Bovill property, located in northwestern Idaho,  hosts multiple high value industrial mineral deposits including high purity quartz (>99.95% SiO2) that can be produced through a standard flotation process, halloysite that has an industry leading combination of aspect ratio and lowest levels of trace elements and potassium feldspar that has some of the highest alkalis of k-spar products currently available.  Halloysite is a unique tubular shaped alumina-silicate mineral often referred to as a halloysite nanotube – HNT, which is being increasingly used in nanotechnology applications.  Economic assessments of both the Kelly's Basin feldspar-quartz deposit and the Bovill Kaolin Deposits are ongoing. While additional assessment work is required to fully assess the economic viability of the Bovill Kaolin Deposits, a January 2011 Preliminary Economic Assessment (the "PEA") based upon limited, widely spaced drilling over large areas demonstrated robust economic metrics and indicated the Bovill Kaolin Deposits may represent the largest deposit of halloysite in North America.  

i-minerals inc.
Per:  "Thomas M. Conway"
Thomas M. Conway,
President & CEO

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SOURCE i-minerals inc.