Alien Metals says original Donovan 2 drilling plan remains ‘largely unchanged’
Alien has received all of the technical data from Capstone Mining’s drilling, excluding the drill core, which it said it will review in due course, as well as a final report outlining their findings.
Last month, Alien said Capstone Mining Corp had decided not to proceed on the Donovan 2 Copper-Gold project thereby terminating a previously agreed earn-in agreement between Alien, Estrella de Plata, Capstone Mining Corp. and Capstone Gold S.A. de C.V. from July.
At the time, the Company informed investors that Capstone had planned to provide Alien with all the technical data generated during their tenure as well as a final report outlining their findings as per the original agreement which was previously signed back in October 2020.
Alien said its original drilling plan remains largely unchanged because Capstone’s drilling consists of single holes in different locations that target very specific geophysical targets.
Figure 1: Location of Donovan 2 Copper-Gold project, Zacatecas Region, Mexico in relation to TECK San Nicolas VMS Copper deposit, July 2021
In comparison, Alien said it had planned to, and still does plan to, carry out a more systematic ‘heel to toe’ style of drilling across geophysical and geological targets, in order to ensure that each target area is properly covered by drilling with no gaps, it explained. (Figure 2 below).
Alien is now finalising an initial 4-to-6 hole program for about 800m to target the Los Alamos and Cerro de la Cruz targets once a review of the current drilling permit status is completed, the MMI results are received and reprocessing of the geophysics are completed to ensure it has used every available piece of data to maximise confidence in the drilling program, it said.
Figure 2: Alien proposed maiden drill plan, June 2020, Donovan 2
Capstone said it will arrange for a revocation of the transfer agreement and Alien will revert to being the Project operator, retaining a 100% interest in the Donovan 2 Copper-Gold project.
Alien said it is considering getting the combined geophysical data at Donovan 2 to date by all parties reprocessed and reinterpreted by an independent group specialising in geophysical interpretation who have experience of Mexican geology and geophysical responses.
It said a comparison of geophysical work is already comparing the San Nicolas project to Donovan 2 with possible synergies being used as targeting tools for these phases of work such as the MMI program initial target area.
Bill Brodie Good, CEO & Technical Director, said, “In our view, Donovan 2 is still a highly underexplored asset and one that, we believe, offers a great deal of exploration potential.
Following the recent termination of the earn-in agreement with Capstone Mining we have been hard at work reviewing the exploration they undertook, as well as reviewing all of our own historic exploration work. We are now finalising the next stage exploration programs for the project.”
“We believe that some of the geophysical targets at Donovan 2, along with the geological target at Los Alamos, have not been adequately tested. Along with reinterpretation of the geophysical data and surface geochemical work, we want to ensure we have optimised target generation to follow up with our systematic maiden drilling program,” added Brodie Good.
“We are undertaking a review and validation of Capstone’s drilling, which could provide more information to use in target generation. The recent new samples taken by Alien from the old water well at Los Alamos further reinforces our belief in this project and its potential.”
View from Vox
Despite Capstone's withdrawal, Alien Metals has told investors that it believes it can use the existing work and data ‘more fully’ in order to construct a plan for the next stage of work.
In recent weeks, Alien extracted a fresh sample of mineralised material taken from the Los Alamos water well target as part of its follow up piece of work to aid in further targeting work.
UFO’s portfolio of exploration stage assets includes volcanogenic massive sulphide style mineralisation (copper, zinc and lead), high-grade silver projects in Mexico and a 51% interest in two highly prospective iron ore projects in the Pilbara region in Australia.
The company said its portfolio may be expanded to include other minerals such as iron ore and lithium, and jurisdictions within Africa and Asia where its management has demonstrable expertise advancing assets in line with international reporting standards.
Expanding Licence Areas
In recent weeks, the company was granted a 208 km2 exploration licence by Ironbark Zinc surrounding the Citronen zinc-lead project, a high-grade metal project located in northern Greenland which is believed to be one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc-lead projects.
The minerals exploration and development company said the project holds a JORC resource of 131.1m tonnes @ 4.5% zinc and lead for 13bn pounds of contained zinc and lead metal.
The licence is valid until 31 December 2023 and continues UFO’s strategy of identifying counter-cyclical opportunities in first class mining jurisdictions with ‘excellent upside potential.’
"The Company and its advisers continue to assess new projects and identified an opportunity to secure an exploration footprint in northern Greenland on strike and adjacent to the world class undeveloped Citronen zinc-lead project,” said CEO, Bill Brodie Good.
IBK believes the projects offer an attractive entry into one of the world's premier silver belts and will soon start marketing them to a range of potential investors and project partners.
UFO said it will continue its efforts in exploring and developing the projects and simultaneously consider third party funding options to develop and mine the projects.
In other recent news, the company has also recently completed a detailed geological mapping and sampling programme at the Hamersley iron ore projects in Australia with field observations indicating that two of its prospects may be part of the same larger system.
The two projects, which have demonstrated “great potential” are located in the Hamersley Province which is known as one of the premier iron ore producing regions of the world.
Preliminary handheld XRF results are consistent with those observed in the 2019 field programme, with reported ranges of between 40% and 70% iron.
Alien Metals has now commenced preparing a Program of Works ("POW") for submission ahead of drilling.
Meanwhile, North American advisor firm IBK Capital has commenced the marketing process for the Company's San Celso and Los Campos silver projects which are located in Mexico.
The process for the silver projects follows the successful earn-in transaction with Capstone Mining announced earlier in October 2020 regarding UFO’s Donovan 2 copper-gold project.
Complementary Acquisitions
Alien Metals has executed an acquisition-led strategy headed by a high-quality geological team to build a strong portfolio of diversified assets including two recent acquisitions in 2019
These include the Brockman and Hancock Ranges high-grade iron ore projects and the Elizabeth Hill Silver projects both located in the Pilbara region, Western Australia.
In addition to progressing its portfolio of assets and following its strategic review of its portfolio of silver and precious metals projects in Mexico, Alien Metals has identified priority exploration targets within its 9 mining concessions which it is working to advance systematically.
The Company’s silver projects are located in the Zacatecas State, Mexico’s largest silver producing state which produced over 190m oz of silver in 2018 alone accounting for 45% of the total silver production of Mexico for that year.
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