IPO Watch: Vulcan's zero carbon copper, nickel and cobalt play Kuniko 'heavily oversubscribed'

Investors are clearly at least a little excited at Vulcan Energy’s (ASX:VUL) copper, nickel and cobalt spin-off Kuniko Limited with the latter’s $7.88m initial public offering closing heavily oversubscribed.

The IPO, which was priced at 20c per share, was carried out to accommodate as many Vulcan shareholders as possible through a 1 for 4 priority offer and Kuniko will have over 2,000 shareholders upon listing.

The spin-off allows Vulcan, which will retain a 27% shareholding in Kuniko. to focus on developing its core Zero Carbon Lithium combined renewable energy and lithium chemicals project in Germany.

Kuniko will focus on the development of copper, nickel and cobalt projects in Scandinavia, with a strict mandate to maintain net zero carbon footprint throughout exploration, development and production.

To achieve this, it will focus on areas with zero carbon, hydro-electric power, and develop mineral processing flowsheets for production using zero fossil fuels.

Kuniko projects

The package of assets includes the Feoy and Romsas nickel-copper-cobalt projects in southwestern Norway, the Skuterud cobalt-copper-gold project in central-southern Norway, and the Undal copper-zinc-cobalt and Vangrofta copper-cobalt-gold project in the Trondheim region.

Feoy consists of eight mineral exploration permits covering 71sqkm that are believed to be prospective for ophiolite-hosted nickel-cobalt-copper, and VMS-style copper-zinc mineralisation.

The area includes historical mines that were worked in the late 19th century, hinting that there are more ore systems to be found.

Romsas covers 90sqkm of ground that is prospective for magmatic-hosted nickel-chrome-copper-PGE mineralisation.

It includes the Romsas nickel mine that produced 16,000t of ore at a grade of 1.07% nickel and 0.4% copper over 10 years before it ceased in 1876 due to a decline in nickel prices.

Meanwhile, the 52sqkm Skuterud project is prospective for meta-sedimentary hosted cobalt, copper and gold mineralisation and includes the Skuterud mine, which is believed to be one of the world’s oldest known cobalt mines.

It hosts the 9km long Modum trend that is already known to host multiple meta-sedimentary-cobalt-copper-gold-type mineral-systems.

Undal consists of 40sqkm of exploration tenure that is prospective for VMS-style copper-cobalt-zinc mineralisation.

The Undal mine produced about 289,000t of ore at grades of 1.15% copper and 1.86% zinc.

The 10sqkm Vangrofta project includes the Frederick IV mine, which while relatively small, is located amongst numerous historically significant VMS-type, multi-million tonne mining operations in the well-known Roros VMS ore fields.

Despite receiving little modern exploration, Vangrofta is geologically well positioned amongst the Roros ore-field to host further copper-zinc-cobalt exploration discoveries.

Proposed work

Kuniko has started detailed review and assessment of each licence area with a view to developing low-carbon footprint battery-metal exploration discoveries.

Field reconnaissance studies will be carried out over the European summer months to build detailed exploration plans for each project.

Detailed sampling and mapping will be conducted over each project area to construct tailored geophysical surveys with a view to undertake drilling over compelling targets identified through this process.