New World’s demerger of its cobalt assets to focus on the Antler copper project is now well and truly underway with the lodgement of a prospectus on the ASX.

The new company – Koba Resources – is seeking to raise up to $8m through the issue of 40 million shares priced at 20c each to fund exploration and development of its North American cobalt assets. Koba reserves the right to accept oversubscriptions of up to $1m.

Eligible New World Resources (ASX:NWC) shareholders will receive a piece of the pie through an in-specie distribution of 20 million existing Koba shares.

They will also have the right to participate in a priority offer of up to 15 million new shares, which will form part of the initial public offer (IPO).

Euroz Hartleys and Peloton Capital are joint lead managers to the IPO, which is expected to lead to an ASX listing around 27 April 2022.

Exploration and development veteran takes the helm

Koba will be led by former Caspin Resources (ASX:CPN) exploration manager Ben Vallerine as its managing director.

He has more than 20 years’ experience in the international mining industry and has been heavily involved, in a senior management capacity, with exploration and development resource projects across a range of commodities, predominantly in Australia and North America.

Prior to his role at Caspin, Vallerine was the chief executive officer and exploration manager for Renegade Exploration (ASX:RNX), exploration manager for PolarX Limited (Alaska) and country manager for Black Range Minerals Limited (Colorado).

The latter two roles gave him considerable experience in the identification, acquisition and exploration of mineral assets in North America.

He is currently the non-executive technical director of Okapi Resources.

North American cobalt

Following completion of the IPO, Koba will have a suite of five cobalt projects, the Blackpine, Colson and Panther cobalt-copper projects in the Idaho Cobalt Belt; the Elkhorn cobalt project in the same belt; and the Goodsprings copper-cobalt project in Nevada.

Blackpine and Panther were acquired in November last year.

Both projects have been the subject of historical mining with about 2,000t of ore extracted from underground workings at Blackpine and historical workings present at the Sweet Repose prospect at Panther.

What sets Koba aside from other companies is that very high-grade cobalt mineralisation is present at all of Koba’s projects.

Historical drilling at Blackpine returned intersections such as:

  • 6.2m @ 0.61% Co and 6.4 g/t Au (which included 2.8m @ 1.25% Co and 14.0 g/t Au)
  • 1.2m @ 1.43% Co and 1.37 g/t Au, and
  • 0.15m @ 4.79% Co and 4.0 g/t Au

But no drilling has been undertaken at Blackpine since 1996.

With strong cobalt and copper soil anomalism evident over more than 5,000 metres of strike, and mineralisation completely open at depth, there is considerable potential to discover additional mineralisation at Blackpine.

And at the Colson Project, samples from the historical underground workings returned assays of 2.5m @ 0.59% Co, 5.33% Cu and 2.24 g/t Au in the 1970s.

Only 14 drill holes have subsequently been drilled from surface. These holes intersected widespread cobalt mineralisation, with some very high-grade intervals including:

  • 0.3m @ 1.26% Co and 3.0 g/t Au, and
  • 0.7m @ 0.49% Co and 0.3 g/t Au

The mineralisation at the Colson Project remains completely open along strike, with very strong cobalt-in-soil anomalism present over several kilometres, within which several strong, discrete IP anomalies have been delineated as priority drill targets. Koba will commence drill testing these targets, for the very first time, shortly after listing.

And the Goodsprings Project contains several historical copper-cobalt deposits including the Blue Jay mine where in 1922, more than 0.5t of ore containing 6.37% cobalt was recovered from a waste dump.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with New World Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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