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Mining
Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday November 30.
Even a labrador — smart, cute, loyal, affectionate and obedient but typically incapable of opening a trading account or analysing financial information — could probably tell you iron ore juniors have had a rough time of things in 2022.
That market has been harder to read than a Senate cross-bencher with the balance of power, with prices peaking above US$160/t before falling below US$80 in six months and returning above US$100/t today.
Safer waters for spec stocks this year in battery metals and especially lithium, where every man, woman and their dog have thrown their spare change in the hope of capturing the glow of a booming electric vehicle market and record lithium prices.
Stepping from the African and West Australian iron ore scene into the international lithium market today is Kogi Iron, which will be renamed “Macro Metals” after entering a binding open term sheet to acquire 100% of the Salar Verde lithium brine-clay project in Chile.
A $1.5m placement to institutional and sophisticated investors at 0.5c a share will fund due diligence and ongoing exploration at its existing assets.
The project covers an area of 289km2 in the southern part of the Salar de Llamara in northern Chile, within the so-called South Amercian Lithium Triangle. Home to global major SQM, Chile is the second top producer of lithium raw materials after Australia, supplying 22% of the world’s lithium units.
Drilling in 2018 hit lithium brines and clays within 50m of surface, with best brine results of 15m at 217ppm Li from 35m and 5m at 117ppm from 35m, and clay hits like 30m at 392ppm from 10m, with numerous holes ending in mineralisation.
“The Salar Verde Lithium Project represents an exciting opportunity for the company in terms of diversification of commodity exposure into an integral part of the electrical storage market,” Kogi non-executive chairman Peter Huljich said on the move into lithium.
“Chile has an extensive mining history and is globally renowned as a leader in lithium brine extraction and processing.
“The vendor consortium of the Salar Verde Project have an extensive track record of successful project development in Chile and abroad and we look forward to leveraging their skillset and operational experience.
“With a predicted 1,500,000 tonne Lithium Carbonate Equivalent shortage in the lithium market by 2030 the opportunity (beckons) to gain exposure to a project with the potential to be a large high grade brine and clay lithium project which has the potential to completely transform the company and enable it to be a key contributor to the global decarbonisation revolution which is currently underway.”
KFE plans to complete a geophysical survey during the due diligence period to assess the depth of the basin and conductive horizons representing brine targets, Huljich says, with drill tendering to be conducted to advance exploration.
Moving from brines to hard rock, $7.4 million capped WA gold and nickel explorer Pure Resources was up a tasty 27.66% as of 11.30am AEDT after securing the rights to 160km2 of lithium claims in Quebec, Canada.
Covering part of the 70km long Laforge Greenstone Belt, the acquisition has some terrific neighbours, located 65km north east of Patriot Battery Metals’ (ASX:PMT) emerging Corvette discovery, one of a number of spodumene deposits identified in Canada’s James Bay region in recent years.
Pure reckons the Laforge belt could be a dead ringer for the La Grande Greenstone Belt, which hosts the Corvette pegmatites currently being drilled by Ken Brinsden-chaired Patriot.
“The recently approved Laforge claims are the result of the company’s global review for future facing metal opportunities. The Laforge Greenstone Belt was of particular interest as it was recognised that the geology is analogous to lithium belts in Canada and globally,” Pure executive chairman Patric Glovac said.
“We believe these claims, whilst greenfields, are situated in the same geological province and exhibit analogous rock types, structural setting and geophysical properties as observed at the Corvette Lithium Trend 65km to the southwest.
“This a genuine opportunity to discover a significant lithium deposit in a Tier-1 jurisdiction and we’re excited to kick-off exploration with aerial reconnaissance mapping and sampling to be undertaken in the coming weeks.”
Pure has sewn up 319 claims in total, 35km from the La Grande-4 hydro power station.
New Age Exploration has been hanging around the Pilbara for a while now, looking for gold not far from De Grey Mining’s (ASX:DEG) world class Hemi discovery.
But it has shot up today on, you guessed it, a lithium discovery, finding five lithium anomalies with coincident pathfinder elements up to 8km long, 3km wide and, a phrase that will get any geologist’s heart a flutter, “open in all directions”.
None have been explored or drill tested before, particularly stark given the Quartz Hill project New Age owns is just a few kilometres from MinRes (ASX:MIN) and Albemarle’s Wodgina and Pilbara Minerals’ (ASX:PLS) Pilgangoora, two of the world’s largest lithium mines.
The largest lithium anomalies were found at Bullock Well, to the east of Quartz Hill, next to the southeastern margin of a granite pluton of the Sisters Supersuite, rocks known to be a confirmed source of spodumene bearing pegs in the Pilbara.
The anomalies range from 3-8km long, 2-4km wide and are defined by lithium values from 150ppm to 843ppm. Three strong anomalies over strike lengths of between 1km and more than 5km and widths of 1km to 3km, with maximum lithium values of 225ppm found at Quartz Hill. These are north-east of the historic Friendly Creek tin-tantalum mining centre in the western centre of the Wodgina Greenstone Belt, hosting the Wodgina, Pilgangoora and Mt Francisco lithium deposits.
“The very strong results at both Bullock Well and Quartz Hill clearly demonstrate the exceptional potential our project area has to host significant high grade, hard rock lithium mineralisation,” NAE executive director Joshua Wellisch said.
“Each of the areas are defined by lithium values in excess of 150ppm and all are supported by all of the key multi-elements, including caesium, tantalum, tin and rubidium which are well documented associations of lithium bearing ‘rare-metal’ LCT pegmatite mineral systems.
“The size and strength of the anomalism at Bullock Well in particular is staggering given it has been identified within an area that has had no previous exploration and our current sampling hasn’t closed it off yet.
“On the back of these results we have initiated a helicopter supported reconnaissance program to get our team back on the ground to assess these and other high priority areas in more detail. Final results from the CSIRO interpretation will provide us with more compelling information and a framework to guide our ongoing exploration efforts.”
CSIRO’s interpretation of 5300 samples are expected in the March quarter, with results to be used to refine and prioritise gold and lithium drill targets.
(Up on no news.)
No news today but investors do have their tails up on GreenX’s announcement that arbitration hearings in London have been completed in its claim against the Polish Government.
Before it turned into a “green metals” company, focused on exploring the Arctic Rift project in Greenland, ASX and London listed GreenX was a coal explorer called Prairie Mining.
It reckons the decision of the Polish Government to block the development of its Jan Karski and Debiensko coking coal projects violated the Poles’ obligations under treaties and deprived it of the “entire value of its investments in Poland”.
We could see this play out on the soccer field in due course. On current standings heading into tonight’s World Cup group clashes, Robert Lewandowski’s Poles are on a collision course with the Socceroos in the Round of 16.
Even with the hopes or their nation on their backs they may well be playing for less than GreenX. It has claimed an extraordinary $1.3 billion (£737 million) in damages on lost profits, damages and accrued interest.
“We are pleased to have completed the arbitration hearing for both the BIT and ECT Claims. There has been an enormous amount of time and effort put into the claim by our legal and management teams,” GreenX CEO Ben Stojkovich.
“We now look forward to the Arbitral Tribunal rendering the Award (legal decision) in due course.”
In a timely little bit of nearology, Voltaic Strategic Resources says it has identified targets at its Ti Tree project in WA’s Gascoyne region that bear plenty of similarities to Red Dirt Metals’ (ASX:RDT) Yinnetharra and Malinda lithium pegmatites, those ones RDT’s David Flanagan was going nuts over when we spoke to him on Monday.
Having identified a combined 22km of strike at its Volta 1 and Volta 2 targets at Ti Tree North and South, VSR now says analysis of hyperspectral ASTER and LANSAT satellite imagery has generated several priority targets.
A shallow drill program is planned to commence with an auger rig in December.
At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Voltaic Strategic Resources and New Age Exploration are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.
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