Alba Mineral Resources initiates Phase 2 drilling at Thule Black Sands
(ALBA ) said the Phase 2 Drilling Programme has now commenced at the Company's wholly owned Thule Black Sands Ilmenite Project in northern Greenland.
The London-listed exploration company said it is seeking to drill 125 holes for up to 1,000 m with the aim of substantially increasing the existing JORC Mineral Resource at the project.
Today, drilling activities at site have been initiated by Alba's wholly owned subsidiary White Eagle Resources Limited, the owner and operator of the Thule Black Sands Ilmenite Project.
Specifically, the programme, which will focus on the higher-grade southern area as delineated by a previous 2018 drilling campaign, will target 125 holes at the site which will be drilled by sonic rig at an average depth of 8 metres which equates to 1,000m of drilling.
The holes will be spaced on a grid of 200m x 250m with fences placed midway (infilling) between the 2018 fences while there will be some in-fill drilling within the 2018 fences to allow for Resource estimation to greater depths, the Company explained to shareholders.
In comparison, the 2018 Mineral Resource estimate only averaged 1 metre in depth due to drilling being constrained by the permafrost layer being encountered around that depth.
To enable depth penetration through the permafrost, Alba has chosen to use a sonic drill in the current campaign. Initial reports to date show the drill rig to be performing as expected.
If drilling shows a significant increase in the Mineral Resource, White Eagle intends to advance conceptual or scoping level studies to assess the project’s economic exploitation.
Alba said this study work will incorporate the metallurgical test work currently in progress at IHC Robbins' Brisbane test facility, thereby allowing for a relatively fast-track assessment.
In addition to the drilling, the Company will be carrying out a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) survey over the licence area which will greatly assist in future mine development activities.
Alba published an independent JORC Exploration Target ("ET") for TBS last month which resulted in an exploration target for the combined North, Central and South areas of 70-300 million tonnes of material with a range of percentage of total heavy minerals (THM%) of 35-50%, a range of ilmenite grade of 12-22% and a range of in-situ ilmenite grade of 6-11%.
Figure 2: southern area at TBS showing planned drill holes in the 2021 campaign, the ET domains and the Mineral Resource Estimate outlines (shown in red). Some boreholes may be repositioned in the field for technical reasons and/or due to the sensitivity of certain micro-locations. (Source: Alba Mineral Resources)
Meanwhile, Alba also gave investors an update on its plan to divest its Greenland assets, namely the Amitsoq, TBS, Melville Bay and Inglefield Projects, into a separate vehicle.
As outlined in May 2021, subject to regulatory approval, the Company’s separate vehicle, which is also referred to as “New Listco”, will seek to be admitted to trading on AIM.
New Listco will acquire the Greenland Projects from Alba for shares, and simultaneously with the listing New Listco will undertake an Initial Public Offering fundraising to secure the necessary working capital to fast-track the development of the Greenland Projects, it noted.
Alba believes that moving the Greenland Projects into a new listed vehicle will create materially greater value than will be possible within its currently diversified portfolio. .
As part of the Spin-Out Transaction, Alba will receive New Listco shares valued on IPO at around £6 million, resulting in Alba becoming the majority shareholder of New Listco.
View from Vox
Last month, Alba declared a significant exploration target for the Thule Black Sands Ilmenite Project which concluded that the exploration target for the combined North, Central and South areas at TBS ranges from 70 million tonnes to 300 million tonnes of material.
From the grades stated, the minimum exploration target of 70Mt of material would, if verified, equate to a further 3Mt of contained ilmenite and the maximum Exploration Target of 300Mt of material would, if verified, equate to a further 33Mt of contained ilmenite, Alba noted.
Addressing shareholders, the company stated, ‘Even at the lower end of the exploration target range, therefore, if proven up by subsequent drilling this would result in a significant uplift in the current contained ilmenite of 1.7Mt per the existing maiden Mineral Resource Estimate for the Project, with the result that the contained ilmenite would increase to 4.7Mt in total.’
Alba told investors that because the potential quantity and grade of this Exploration Target is conceptual in nature, there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource.
In addition, Alba's recently proposed Greenland-focused, spin-out company will enable it to form a new vehicle that could unlock ‘real and sustained value’ across its Greenland projects which the company views as being ‘materially undervalued’ within its current asset portfolio.
Shares in Alba Mineral Resources have increased by 12.5% in value over the past month with the group’s shares having reacted positively to the news of the spin out of assets based in Greenland. The stock was trading 5.45% lower this morning at 0.26p following the update.
Alba Mineral Resources is a well-diversified exploration and development company which owns and operates mining projects in Greenland, Wales and Ireland. Its strategy is to identify and secure undervalued assets with a diversified commodity mix where there is potential for discovering further unexploited resources alongside the existing mine site.
Limerick Base Metals Project
Historically, only eight drillholes have been completed within Alba’s Project area of the Limerick Base Metals Project, the most recent being the three holes drilled in Q2 of 2019.
Alba said these low levels of drilling are unusual in the Irish context and, for this reason, the area is considered under-explored. Alba has previously identified a number of attractive targets that have never been drilled before.
Alba’s current technical team, led by Mark Austin, Alba’s COO and Senior Geologist, will undertake a comprehensive review of the licence area before determining the next phase of planned exploration activities.
The expenditure conditions attached to the renewal of PL 3824 require Alba to incur expenditure of €15,732 by 26 May 2021 with a further €50,000 to be spent by 26 May 2022.
JORC Resources expected
Despite losing field time to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alba said it is in a position to execute one of the most significant underground work programmes seen for several decades at its Clogau gold mine in Wales, just as the commodity is reaching all-time highs in value.
Alba said its mining projects remain on ‘a sound footing’, with JORC resources at both Thule Black Sands and Melville Bay, and plans to drill a maiden JORC resource at Amitsoq in 2021.
Amitsoq
In recent weeks, Alba said an independent testwork programme at the Group’s Amitsoq graphite project in southern Greenland has confirmed ‘very high carbon content.’ Due to the high carbon content, the product would offer ‘a significant advantage, as no purification would be needed to achieve that level,’ the Company explained to investors.
Accordingly, subject to certain follow-up testwork which the Group said is recommended, the testwork successfully indicates the suitability of Amitsoq graphite as feed material for Lithium-Ion Batteries ("LIBs"), the fastest growing market for flake graphite globally.
‘This finding that the concentrate appears to be suitable for LIBs is significant, as the market for LIBs is the fastest growing market for flake graphite, with massive growth rates forecast for the next decade due to the expected demand for LIBs in electric vehicles,’ Alba outlined.
Transition from Exploration to Production in Greenland and Wales
Other ‘significant’ progress has also been made in recent years towards Alba’s ultimate goal of achieving commercial production at one or more of its sites, including at the Thule Black Sands in Greenland, the Amitsoq project in Greenland and the Horse Hill well in Surrey.
In 2020, Alba announced that surface trenching activities would kick-start over the first of the group’s 10 regional gold targets over the Dolgellau Gold Field.
The trenching will target the first of 10 separate new gold targets over the Dolgellau Gold Field which have previously been identified by Alba.
Alba said up to eight trenches have been planned in this first phase, each varying in length from 40-90m for a total of 575m, with each trench being 1m wide and up to 2m deep.
Once exposed, the quartz veining and other structures from the trenches, those of which are pictured below, will be sampled, and those samples sent to a laboratory for assaying.
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