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The Bald Hill lithium mine is back, and it’s a New Dawn for neighbour Torque Metals
Mining
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- TOR to acquire strategic package of tenements adjacent to company’s Paris Gold Camp, to be renamed Penzance project
- Includes New Dawn, is just 600m away from the Bald Hill lithium mine
- New Dawn is an unmined lithium and tantalum occurrence on granted mining leases
- Torque has firm commitments to raise $4m in an over-subscribed share placement for exploration
- Paris Gold Camp returns hits of up to 185g/t Au
Torque Metals is in prime position to capitalise on the reboot of one of WA’s most sought-after lithium mines, Bald Hill, with an exclusive option to secure lithium-bearing ground just 600m away.
There’s been a flurry of activity around the purchase of the Bald Hill lithium-tantalum mine in the past week, with mining supermajor Glencore lobbing a reported $1.8 billion bid to buy and re-list the indebted owner of the mine.
Yet, as we reported yesterday, it looks like Chris Ellison’s MinRes (ASX:MIN) has come out on top to be the miner to rejuvenate the project – and Torque’s New Dawn lithium project is right next door.
Torque Metals (ASX:TOR) has inked a deal to acquire a collection of gold, nickel and lithium-rich tenements — to be renamed Penzance — near its Paris gold camp in the Tier-1 Goldfields mining jurisdiction.
This includes New Dawn, an unmined lithium and tantalum occurrence on granted mining leases, 600m along strike of the established Bald Hill lithium-tantalum operation.
“Our footprint now spans over 500km2, bolstered by 12 mining, four prospecting and 12 exploration licences,” Torque MD Cristian Moreno says.
“In the wake of remarkable and solid gold discoveries at the Paris gold systems, Torque is strategically expanding its presence in the region, whilst also venturing into the critical minerals domain with the acquisition of New Dawn pre-Native Title mining licenses adjacent to the Bald Hill which hosts a 26.5Mt @ 1% Li2O spodumene mine.”
New Dawn
The New Dawn lithium project consists of two mining licences that were historically explored for tantalum back in 2001, which culminated in a resource of 1.04Mt @ 160ppm Ta2O5 down to 30m below surface.
Torque says lithium exploration was largely ignored, with the asset never assayed for lithium itself.
Yet early exploration conducted by Torque in August identified multiple outcropping pegmatites and rock chip samples grading up to an eye-watering 6% Li2O.
The explorer is now mobilising for a 20-hole diamond drilling campaign across 2,000m this month to test highly prospective targets for lithium mineralisation.
Paris Gold Camp
The Paris project is located just 12km southeast of Gold Fields’ St Ives gold mining operation and 10km east of Karora Resources’ Higginsville gold mine and has remained vastly underexplored, with historic drilling “generally restricted” down to just 50m below surface, Torque says.
Recent diamond drilling at Torque’s Paris Gold Camp shows strong gold intersections of up to 185g/t Au around the historic Paris open pit.
The explorer believes there’s extensive mineralisation along a 2.5km strike and a Plan of Work (POW) has been approved for the next phase of drilling which the explorer says aims to spatially increase the gold mineralised zones.
Capital raise
Torque is raising $4m via placement at 12c per share – a narrow discount of ~2.7% to the company’s 5-day VWAP and is supported by existing shareholders, institutional investors and the board itself.
In two tranches, the company will issue 23,084,260 shares to raise $2.77m as part of Tranche 1, and a further $1.23m by issuing 10,249,073 shares in Tranche 2 through support from Euroz Hartley.
This article was developed in collaboration with Torque Metals, 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.
