Typhoon Possibly Next Gold Rush to Storm The Gawler Craton

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THE INSIDE STORY: Tyranna Resources (ASX: TYX) controls more than 9,700 square kilometres of ground in the northern Gawler Block of South Australia’s Gawler Craton. By Ron Berryman

Tyranna Resources is hoping the results of drilling at the company’s Jumbuck gold project later this year will herald the next million ounce deposit in this resource-rich region.

The company has identified seven priority gold prospects from more than 14,000 metres of drilling in 2016 on land surrounding the one million ounce Challenger gold mine, which it believes could confirm a major deposit from the results of their latest drilling campaign.

The 2016 drilling program was aimed at exploring for high-grade open pit gold mineralisation within trucking distance of the Challenger operations.

South Australia’s Gawler Craton has been likened to the Albany/Fraser Belt adjacent to the Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia, which is host to the 6.3 million ounce Tropicana gold deposit.

The Gawler Craton is also host to a number of major mines including Challenger, which has produced one million ounces of gold at six grams per tonne gold since 2002.

Tyranna Resources managing director Bruno Seneque is upbeat about the project and especially the two most recent prospects to be drilled, Typhoon and Greenwood.

“We have just finished drilling at Typhoon and we are about to re-commence the second half of the program,” Seneque told The Resources Roadhouse.

“There is about 400 metres of strike to the north of the main structure the gold is associated with and the drill results we have been getting there are as high as one metre at 50 grams per tonne gold.

“What we are looking for is another Challenger.

“When that deposit was discovered it caused a gold rush to the Gawler Craton from 1995 to 1999 and we are hoping our project will do the same.

“It will be a case of ‘watch this space’ if we hit the jackpot with Typhoon.”

Tyranna Resources has locked up as much prospective ground as possible within a 100 kilometre radius of the Challenger mine, where it has since identified seven main prospects.

“We are focussing now with RC (reverse circulation) drilling at Typhoon and Greenewood because they have returned the best gold intercepts and we believe they tick the boxes for the next potential Challenger gold mine,” Seneque said.

“From the results we have already received, we believe Typhoon could be a Challenger look-alike – so to speak.

“The northeast-southwest magnetic feature at Typhoon remains open along a mineralised strike of 400 metres at both ends and the southern extension can be traced a further 300 metres.”

Final assays from early drilling carried out at Typhoon included:

13 metres at 3.88g/t gold from 47m, including 4m at 10.8g/t gold; and

5m at 2.55g/t gold from 70m, including 1m at 7.5 g/t gold.

More recent drilling of 65 RC holes for 5,200m at Typhoon and Monsoon, which started in March 2017, intercepted gold from surface of one metre at 2.46g/t gold, while one bonanza intersection returned one metre at 50.7g/t gold.

The 13 holes completed recorded numerous mineralised intercepts in all sections to date.

Typhoon and Monsoon are located 39km south of the Challenger gold mine while Greenewood is 37km north.

Follow-up drilling at Greenewood provided Tyranna Resources further reasons for optimism with a range of excellent shallow intercepts, which included:

14m at 5.8g/t gold from 35m, including 6m at 11.5g/t gold;

8m at 4.08g/t gold from 20m;

6m at 6.81g/t gold from 53m;

3m at 8.26g/t gold from 26m;

6m at 2.17g/t from 36m; and

8m at 3.35g/t gold from 55m.

Seneque said Greenewood offered outstanding potential for a resource increase by deeper down-dip drilling and by northern extensional drilling to follow up on hole 073, which returned eight metres at 3.35g/t gold in the primary zone.

“Our drilling program, at the moment, is for 2,000 metres of strike drilling at Typhoon,” Seneque explained

“From there we will take the rig up to Greenewood where we will carry out about 3,000 metres and some scoping studies at two other prospects, Campfire Bore and Golf Bore.

“The drilling to be conducted at Typhoon will focus on the strike extensions to the northeast and southwest along the magnetic structure which is parallel to gold mineralisation intersected in recent drilling.

“The key to our approach is improving our knowledge of exploration in this area.

“The geology is different to WA’s Eastern Goldfields where you’ve got gold in the host rock basically occurring at surface.

“In this area it’s much more deformed, under a bit of cover and we’re using various geochemical tools for target generation purposes.

“We have taken that process a few steps further and spent a bit of money on research and development and looked at various other extensions of gold in calcrete.

“We’re trying to be smarter about our exploration and building up our IP and we’re getting results.”

The Resource at the Jumbuck gold project is shallow and early drilling went down to about 70 to 80 metres, however, the company is looking at going deeper with its latest program.

Seneque said the new drilling would look at adding further ounces to the Jumbuck resource at Typhoon while at Greenwood the company will be hoping to define further depth extensions.

“Once we have hit on that we are home and hosed,” he said.

“We’re going to chase it down at deeper levels and once we understand how it extends at depth we’re basically talking about drilling out another Challenger.”

WPG Resources, which owns and operates the Challenger gold mine, is a Joint Venture partner with Tyranna (71 percent), which controls and manages the Jumbuck gold project.

“We can feed our ore through the Challenger mill as part of our Joint Venture agreement with WPG,” Seneque continued.

“The Challenger mill has a capacity of 600,000 tonnes a year but there is talk of increasing it to 800,000 tonnes.”

Tyranna Resources expects to announce a maiden resource estimate for the Typhoon gold prospect later this year.

Seneque believes it could be something that makes everyone, “sit up and think”.

Tyranna (49%) also has a tin prospect (the Zealous tin prospect) with Alliance Resources (51%) at the Wilcherry project in South Australia, 100km northwest of Whyalla as part of the Wilcherry Joint Venture.

Historic drilling at the Zealous prospect intersected significant tin grades including:

20m at 1.29 per cent tin from 42m;

12.3m at 1.1 per cent tin from 119m; and

10m at 1.23 per cent tin from 128m.

Recent RC drilling, which encountered deep regolith consisting of kaolinite and very fine sand, has been suspended and will be continued with diamond drilling once a rig has been sourced.

The RC drill was relocated to the Weednanna gold prospect where excellent gold intercepts had been previously report including:

49m at 6.3g/t gold from 45m, including 21m at 10.7g/t gold from 48m;

10m at 6.8g/t gold from 79m, including 3m at 15.5g/t gold from 81m; and

2m at 61.1g/t gold from 167m.

Tyranna Resources Limited (ASX: TYX)
… The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Level
679 Murray Street
West Perth WA 6005

Ph: (08) 9485 31040

Email: info@tyrannaresources.com
Web: www.tyrananresources.com

DIRECTORS
Joseph Pinto, Bruno Seneque, Nick Revell, Frank Lesko

 

Gold Road Resources Confirms Ibanez Mineralisation

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Gold Road Resources (ASX: GOR) greeted delegates to the Diggers & Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie with news of bedrock drilling results from follow‐up diamond drilling at the Ibanez prospect within the Pacific Dunes‐Corkwood Camp.

The Ibanez prospect is located on Gold Road Resources’ 100 per cent-owned North Yamarna tenements, is hosted within the Yamarna Greenstone Belt, approximately 65 kilometres north of the Attila – Alaric Trend.

The recent drilling returned:

17CWDD0015
8.2 metres at 11.63 grams per tonne gold from 229.67m, including 3.33m at 27.48g/t gold from 232.66m.

Gold Road said this hole had confirmed width and grade of high‐grade mineralisation intersected in previous Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling of 10m at 28.67g/t gold from hole 17CWRC0037.

Gold Road had identified Ibanez as its highest priority target for bedrock drill testing during an annual exploration targeting and ranking exercise completed earlier this year, continues to deliver results.

“The Ibanez prospect was identified as our top bedrock drill target for priority testing in our accelerated 2017 drilling program,” Gold Road Resources executive director ‐ exploration & growth Justin Osborne said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The high‐grade gold results intersected so far, in both RC and diamond drilling, validate our targeting methods and encourage our team to continue their systematic and innovative exploration of the Yamarna Belt.

“Drilling completed so far this year confirms the ranking of Ibanez at the forefront of our activities.

“Our specific focus on completing early diamond drilling in these areas continues to build our understanding of the crucial structural and mineralisation controls of these gold systems.

“This enables us to define the geological framework of our best targets to progress to advanced drilling programs more rapidly.

“Our aim is to discover multi‐million ounce deposits at Yamarna.”

Email: perth@goldroad.com.au

Website: www.goldroad.com.au

Lithium Miner Looking at the Bigger Picture

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THE INSIDE STORY: While lithium miner Neometals (ASX: NMT) has already established itself as a serious Australian producer of the important commodity, the company is also displaying more than one string to its bow. By Ron Berryman

The Western Australia-based company has not only increased performance and product quality for spodumene concentrate from its Mt Marion lithium project 40 kilometres southwest of Kalgoorlie, but it has also embarked on a vigorous research and development program to place it at the forefront of companies providing quality product to the rapidly growing international market.

The Neometals R&D strategy is to develop technologies related to the lithium industry with suitable partners and licence the technology for royalties and retain the right to deploy it as principal.

Mt Marion is a globally significant lithium deposit containing total indicated and inferred mineral resources of 77.8 million tonnes at 1.37 percent lithium oxide.

Prices for lithium carbonate used in the cathode of a battery have more than doubled since 2015, according to international commodities research consultancy CRU.

Demand for lithium is anticipate to grow with the global market for lithium ion batteries, which is expected to reach US$33.1 billion by 2019.

The global lithium market expected to enjoy a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.07 percent during the period 2017-2021 according to Research and Markets, an international market research firm based in Ireland.

Some of the many recent industry developments include French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot announcing that France will outlaw the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040 while Swedish car manufacturer Volvo has also announced plans to build only electric and hybrid vehicles starting in 2019.

Neometals is excited about the direction the company has planned for its future development focussing on research and development.

“We’ll stick with our long-term strategy of developing our lithium, titanium and cobalt commodities and, with the battery supply chain,” Neometals managing director Chris Reed told The Resources Roadhouse

“Of course, Mt Marion is the rock on which our Lithium business has been built on.

“Since the start of this year Mt Marion has increased production and increased its shipments.

“It’s the second largest producer of lithium concentrates in Australia and is underpinned by two great partners, Mineral Resources as the owner and operator of the processing facilities, and Jianxi Ganfeng Lithium Co Ltd, one of China’s biggest Lithium producers.

“Mt Marion is self-contained and the most important source of value for the next stage of our strategy whereby, from 2020, we take our offtake and upgrade it into lithium hydroxide, potentially using our fully patented ELi Process.

“Our rationale to develop this downstream process is to capture the value of turning one dollar of spodumene into three dollars of lithium hydroxide.

“The ELi Process provides hard rock and brine lithium producers a solution to convert their feedstocks into lithium hydroxide at highly competitive and capital costs.

“Neometals intends to exploit the technology as principal, partner or by licensing this technology to producers in return for a royalty stream.

“We own 70 percent of the intellectual property.”

Regarding funding, Reed said the company was taking a staged approach to get Mt Marion up and running and banking profits for a number of years so that the balance sheet provides flexibility in development.

“We can build a 10,000 tonne per year lithium hydroxide plant and feed it with our own product,” he explained.

“We might get someone to come in and manage it under contract, we can finance it off our own balance sheet, it won’t upset the apple cart.

“Once the testwork is completed in North America this quarter, we’ll get the lump sum equipment price and update our internal studies in the December quarter before moving to the engineering design.

“We should be able to complete that and move to the final investment decision at the end of the September quarter next year.”

An added bonus to the Neometals strategy is that the company also has high-grade titanium deposits at its Barrambie Project near Meekatharra in Western Australia.

Lithium Titanate battery anodes

Neometals has engaged a leading US test facility to conduct 100-cycle testing of coin cell batteries using lithium titanate anode (LTO) material made by a process being developed by the company at the CSIRO. Two samples made by different methods held higher voltage and current at the start and end of 100 cycles compared to commercially available LTO.

Lithium titanate has potential to be a leading anode material which can replace graphite due to its far greater surface area relative to graphite.

“Now that we have the necessary feed stocks we’re going to speed up the value of local conversion to the lithium compounds needed for battery manufacturing,” Reed said.

“In batteries you have a lithium based cathode and an anode.

“Our recent research has been looking at developing  lithium and titanium for the anode of the battery.”

Brines

Another research and development project being undertaken by Neometals is to look at improving the brine process.

With half of the world’s lithium coming from brines, Neometals has investigated applying its electrolysis technique, which converts lithium chloride into lithium hydroxide, to these brine sources.

“We’ve tested our electrolysis process on Chilean lithium chlorides and benchmark studies indicate that conversion costs can be reduced by more than 60 percent,” Reed claimed.

“We also developed a titanium-based adsorbent, which would enable us to selectively recover the lithium and potassium onto the adsorbent whilst rejecting the sodium and water back into the salar (salt lake).

“It has the potential to replace conventional solar evaporation of the water in salt lakes which is not environmentally sustainable, requires massive capital costs and is tricky to manage.”

Lithium battery recycling

An important initiative taken by Neometals to diversify into the downstream lithium/battery material supply chain was to develop a technology to economically recover high value cobalt as a material that can be recycled within the battery manufacturing chain.

Less than five percent of lithium-ion batteries are recycled and when they are they have cobalt in them.

Neometal’s research and development team in Canada has developed a process, which Sedgman has run a scoping study on, to build a modular recycling plant which can be upscaled at a later date.

The recovery rate of the technology is 99.2 percent.

Patents

Three United States provisional patent applications have been lodged for the technology with Neometals’ dedicated subsidiary Urban Mining to hold its 50 percent interest in the intellectual property (IP) and patent applications together with its Canadian Joint Venture partner while Neometals will hold exclusive rights to commercialise the technology on a world-wide basis.

“We’ve got IPs over everything we do except the lithium titanate process which is still in the research and development stage,” Reed said.

“All the technologies we have are either pre-patent or patent pending.”

Neometals Ltd (ASX: NMT)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Level 1, 672 Murray Street
West Perth WA 6005

Ph: +61 8 9322 1182

Web: www.neometals.com.au

DIRECTORS
Steven Cole, Christopher Reed, David Reed, Natalia Streltsova, Doug Ritchie

Rox unveils another hot prospect in Mt Fisher greenstone belt

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THE INSIDE STORY: Today’s mineral exploration landscape is littered with companies seeking to uncover a share of Australia’s hidden treasures using technology, knowledge, experience, geological information and personal skills. By Ron Berryman

These tools of the trade along with a policy to patiently acquire, explore and develop have certainly helped place Rox Resources (ASX: RXL) in a strong position with two nickel sulphide projects in Western Australia’s northern goldfields – and a very strong bank balance.

Listed in 2004, Rox Resources has moved on from an early gold prospect near Menzies in the Eastern Goldfields to nickel and gold further north, following the company’s acquisition of the Mt Fisher gold-nickel project from Avoca Resources in 2011 and shortly after negotiated an Option to Purchase Agreement over the Fisher East tenements.

The deal gave the company 615 square kilometres and the mineral rights to the entire southern portion of the Mt. Fisher greenstone belt located 40 kilometres to the east of the prolific Yandal greenstone belt and 100km east of the main Wiluna belt.

During the 1930s small high-grade historic underground production occurred at the old Mt Fisher mine, while from 1987 to 1989 around 23,700 ounces of gold were produced at a grade of 5.3 grams per tonne gold from a small open pit.

Early exploration at Mt Fisher had some drilling success but it didn’t excite the market at the time.

Initially exploration was targeted at gold mineralisation, but in mid-2012 two VTEM (Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic) anomalies in the Fisher East area were evaluated by air core drilling.

“We were conducting a rotary air blast (RAB) drilling program to explore some of the new targets when we found nickel and we now have two million tonnes at 2.5 percent nickel for 50,000 tonnes of contained nickel,” Rox Resources managing director Ian Mulholland told The Resources Roadhouse.

“That’s at a slightly higher cut-off grade than we were quoting before, mainly because of the low nickel price.

“We actually got halfway through a pre-feasibility study and decided that the nickel price was nowhere near where it needed to be so we’ve put things on hold for the time being, however 95 percent of that resource is indicated so we can pretty much move into pre-feasibility once things pick up.”

Mulholland said the company was continuing to drill to test some of the other targets at Fisher East.

“We did some RC drilling (Reverse Circulation) and picked up some sulphides at Mt Tate prospect, so we are quite keen about that.

“We have just completed some diamond drilling at existing deposits and a couple of holes at a new prospect that we like the look of.”

The results from that diamond drilling include:

7.7 metres at 1.4 percent nickel from 693.3m at Camelwood, including 1.4m at 2.9 percent nickel;

2.3m at 2.4 percent nickel from 337.3m at Sabre; and

0.5m at 4.7 percent nickel from 523m at Musket.

Rox has taken much encouragement from the result achieved from the Camelwood hole, considering it to indicate mineralisation continues at similar grade and thickness 100m below the previous drilling limit.

The company was just as heartened by the result from the Musket hole, which intersected a highly faulted and remobilised zone with abundant nickel sulphide stringers indicating the potential for another (deeper) zone of significant mineralisation.

Earlier results at Fisher East were highlighted by 1m at 0.88 percent nickel from 121m within semi-massive sulphides and 2m at 1.45 percent nickel from 94m in transitional disseminated nickel sulphide at Mt Tate.

Mulholland said the drilling identified a seven metre thick massive pyrite zone at Mt Tate which sits approximately 20m stratigraphically above (downhole because the sequence is over-turned) the nickel sulphide zone.

“This massive pyrite zone was also intersected at Tomahawk and is significant because it shows that a strong sulphide source is present, which is an essential ingredient for the formation of nickel sulphides, Mulholland explained.

“The mineralisation at Mt Tate will be further investigated with downhole EM (electromagnetic) before contemplating deeper drilling.”

Apart from the ongoing drilling program at Fisher East, Rox has been busy elsewhere acquiring additional ground 70km due east of Mt Fisher.

The Collurabbie nickel- gold-copper-PGE project was formerly a joint venture operation between Western Mining Corporation and Falcon Minerals.

“They found nickel sulphides at the Mt Olympia prospect in October, 2004, and Falcon’s share price soared but things went quiet because by March/April the following year WMC had been taken over by BHP and they basically shelved the project as they had just picked up the whole WMC nickel division – Kambalda, Leinster and Mt Keith,” Mulholland said.

“Things went very quiet and while some exploration was done it was very regional and was primarily focussed on finding a really big nickel deposit rather than a series of smaller deposits, so nothing has really happened for 12 years.

“We decided to pick it up because we could see that there were a number of anomalies along about 15 kilometres of strike.

“The Olympia deposit itself is still open at depth and we believed there were a lot of possibilities.

“We picked Collurabbie up rather cheaply – $25,000 cash and 7.5 million Rox Resources shares, which translates into about $125,000 to $150,000, depending on the value of the shares.

“It’s a really cheap acquisition and I think it’s got potential and will add to our resource base, we would really like to have about double the 50,000 tonnes at Fisher East.”

The other aspect of Rox’s venture at Mt Fisher is gold and as part of a one year farm-in agreement with Doray Minerals, $1,000,000 was spent on a gravity survey and an air core drilling program, however that company has decided not to continue.

“It was a regional program and we weren’t confident Doray was going to continue because they had already announced they were focussing on their development projects in the Murchison,” Mulholland said.

“We are quite happy to take it on now they have decided against continuing with the venture.”

Rox will now review the results of Doray’s exploration, particularly the zones of interest generated from the aircore drilling and elsewhere on the tenements before considering their next steps.

The company is not short of cash following the sale of their Teena zinc/lead project in the Northern Territory to Teck Australia for approximately $20 million with $16 million up front and a further $3.75 million payable within six years.

“We have banked that money and by the time we have paid all the advisors we’ll be sitting on about $15 million in the bank, while we will be doing some exploration we are not going crazy on the nickel and we might be spending some money on the gold,” Mulholland added.

“However, we are looking for a new project to add to our portfolio, to supplement what we already have – that has been quite a bit of our focus in recent times.

“We want a project that’s got a clear path to production that investors can see is going to be a mine.”

Rox Resources Limited (ASX: RXL)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Level 1, 34 Colin Street
West Perth WA 6005

Ph: +61 8 9226 0044

Email: admin@roxresources.com.au
Web: www.roxresources.com.au

DIRECTORS
Stephen Dennis, Ian Mulholland, Brett Dickson

Early Market Close Takes Toll on Diggers Presenters

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CONFERENCE CALLER: Trading hours of the Australian Securities Exchange and the tyranny of distance provide a difficult conundrum for Western Australia-based share price watchers.

This is on show this week at the 2017 Diggers & Dealers conference in Perth, where an attentive audience, listening to presentations from potential investment conduits need to wait until the next morning to take advantage of their attendance and what they hear.

The ASX, based in Sydney closes trading at 4.00pm, (2.00pm WA time), which means just over half of the companies on show any day are basically presenting for the next day.

This seemed to work well for two companies, Mustang Resources (ASX: MUS) and Breaker Resources (ASX: BRB), which presented just as the market was closing, or had closed, and were the only Day One Presenters to enjoy a lift in price for the day.

Mustang Resources is developing the Montepuez ruby project in Mozambique, which is producing world-class rubies expected to generate strong cashflow through rough ruby sales.

Mustang recently ramped up ruby recoveries at Montepuez, increasing the project’s ruby inventory by over 70 per cent to approximately 120,000 carats.

Mustang is confident the enlarged ruby inventory will enable it to achieve a 200,000- carat inventory, which the company expects to demonstrate the cashflow potential of the Montepuez ruby project.

Sheffield Resources (ASX: SFX) presented well after the close of play in Sydney, however, it was able to remain steady for the day.

It will be interesting to see how the stock opens tomorrow on the back of managing director Bruce McFadzean’s presentation, which outlined the development of the companies Thunderbird minerals sands mine in northern WA.

Sheffield completed a Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) at Thunderbird in March that ticked off some impressive figures, including:

A pre-tax NPV10 of $676 million and an IRR of 25 per cent;

EBITDA of $5.1 billion over a long Life of Mine of 42 years, offering leverage to multiple pricing cycles;

Stage 1 capital of $324 million plus $24 million contingency; and

Ore Reserves updated to 680.5 million tonnes at 11.3 per cent heavy mineral (HM) (Proved + Probable);

The updated Ore Reserve supports the project’s 42 year mine life with a very low life-of-mine strip ratio (waste:ore) of 0.78:1 and includes a Proved Ore Reserve category of 235.8 million tonnes at 13.3 per cent HM.

Others to maintain the status quo for the day included Bill Beament-led Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST), bauxite-focused Metro Mining (ASX: MMI), and lithium play Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS).

We’re not sure what the market was expecting to here from heavyweights Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN) and Resolute Mining (ASX: RSG) in the afternoon session, but they were marked down accordingly, along with Galaxy Resources (ASX: GXY) and early morning presenters Silver Lake Resources (ASX: SLR) and OceanaGold (ASX: OCG).

Although the opening day blues hit most of the Day One Presenters, it would appear most enjoyed a healthy spike on Friday in anticipation of a big news day, which didn’t happen.

Two World Class Arrows in Corazon’s Bow

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THE INSIDE STORY: Underpinned by a large-scale nickel sulphide project and one of the best development opportunities in the cobalt space, Corazon Mining may have two company changing projects on its hands.

Corazon Mining (ASX: CZN) isn’t adopting a plan A and plan B approach to developing the two projects – it is more akin to having two plan As.

The projects are the Lynn Lake nickel sulphide project in Manitoba Province, Canada, and the Mt Gilmore cobalt project in northern News South Wales.

Lynn Lake has long been a core focus for Corazon, but the Mt Gilmore cobalt opportunity is an immediate priority.

“Mt Gilmore is more a pure play cobalt sulphide asset, while Lynn Lake is potentially a large-scale nickel sulphide dominant project, with copper and cobalt within the system,” Corazon Mining managing director Brett Smith told The Resources Roadhouse.

“Followers of the company would know, we have invested significant time and resources into Lynn Lake, it’s a big project with lots of up-side.

“Both are potentially significant development assets in their own right, but right now Mt Gilmore is the focus.”

Corazon is in the enviable position of having a potentially globally significant, high-grade cobalt development asset at a time when once-in-a-life-time demand forces propel the cobalt market.

Driven by a forecast shift to new battery technologies as a first-choice power source, cobalt – a core component of next generation lithium-ion batteries – has morphed from an unheralded, niche metal to a key, global demand-driven commodity in just 12 months.

The LME price of cobalt increased by more than 100 per cent, from US$24,000 per tonne in July 2016 to currently around US$60,000 per tonne.

Commodity research house CRU forecasts total global annual demand to rise from current levels of around 60,000 tonnes to approximately 130,000 tonnes by 2020.

On the supply side, currently 50 to 60 per cent of global cobalt production comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (the majority shipped to China), which experiences supply side disruptions and sovereign risk.

Given the new-technology battery industry’s want for clean supply chains, end-users are increasingly seeking new and sustainable sources of cobalt supply.

Around 50 per cent of current global cobalt production is by-product of nickel operations, with just six per cent of production derived from primary cobalt projects, such as Mt Gilmore.

Corazon acquired Mt Gilmore, in June 2016 and has rapidly progressed the project.

It owns a 51 per cent interest in the project with an exclusive right to earn up to 80 per cent.

The priority target is the Cobalt Ridge deposit.

“Cobalt Ridge is one of the highest grade cobalt deposits to be defined in Australia,” Smith said.

“As a cobalt dominant sulphide deposit it easily distinguishes itself from other cobalt hopefuls, which are re-badged nickel laterite or copper assets.”

A maiden 18 hole drill program targeting Cobalt Ridge, completed in 2016, validated the extent of existing cobalt-copper-gold mineralisation and confirmed multiple zones of cobalt sulphide mineralisation.

Mineralisation remains open along strike to the west and at depth.
 
Average cobalt grades in this drilling were between 0.23 per cent and 0.65 per cent cobalt, with a best individual one metre assay of 2.79 per cent cobalt and multiple higher grade zones of up to 1.48 per cent cobalt.

First phase metallurgical testwork, completed in the first quarter this year, delivered exceptional results, highlighting the project’s commercial development potential.

Initial flotation testing delivered cobalt recoveries of 92.2 per cent (89% copper and 75.5% gold) in a total concentrate with 11.1 per cent mass recovery, and produced a cobalt concentrate of 7.38 per cent cobalt (1.29% copper and 4.1g/t gold).

Optimisation is anticipated to achieve even stronger results, with potential for higher grade cobalt concentrate of 12.2 per cent to be produced from just 1.31 per cent of the initial feed mass – translating to reductions in CAPEX and OPEX for any future mining operation at Mt Gilmore.

Corazon is preparing the next stage of field work at Mt Gilmore to target new zones of cobalt mineralisation discovered at Cobalt Ridge.

The next phase of drilling will have dual priorities of defining a maiden Resource and identifying new zones of cobalt mineralisation – drilling to date has tested only 200m of strike, highlighting the project’s discovery potential.

“We are delighted with the rate of progress and results achieved to date at Mt Gilmore,” Smith said.

“Our end goal is to produce a quality cobalt product for use in the rechargeable battery sector, and investigate opportunities to supply other high value cobalt products, and the outcomes of the next phase of work will start to bring this goal into a clearer focus.”

A cursory look at TSX-listed e-Cobalt Solutions (TSX: ECS), whose Idaho project appears similar to Cobalt Ridge, helps provide context as to the potential of Mt Gilmore.

With the benefit of a mineral resource and a Preliminary Economic Assessment study outlining the economic viability of the Idaho Project, e-Cobalt has a market capitalisation of $158 million – Corazon’s is currently less than $20 million.

While the company’s current focus is on its Australian cobalt asset, the Lynn Lake project remains the elephant in the room for Corazon.

Lynn Lake is one of Canada’s largest nickel producing regions, having mined in the order of 22.2 million tons at one per cent nickel and 0.5 per cent copper between 1953 and 1976, when mining ceased due to depressed nickel prices.

Corazon acquired Lynn Lake in 2010, and in 2015 consolidated the entire Lynn Lake nickel field under its ownership – the first time this world scale nickel belt has been controlled by one company.

The company is targeting new, large Lynn Lake-style nickel sulphide discoveries within the project area and its key area of focus is the Fraser Lake Complex, 5kms south of the Lynn Lake mining centre.

Corazon completed extensive geophysical and geochemical targeting work, consisting three phases of drilling at Fraser Lake in 2017, resulting in the discovery of a large magmatic sulphide system with the potential to host nickel-copper sulphide deposits.

“There is little doubt we are in a large mineralised sulphide system at the Fraser Lake Complex,” Smith said.

“Our priority target is a large Induced Polarization chargeability anomaly of more than 1.7 kilometres in length, called the Matrix Trend.

“All holes in the Phase 3 drilling were extensively mineralised for the entire length-of-hole and nickel and copper-bearing sulphides are observed throughout the drill core, and we continue to intersect Lynn Lake-mine grade mineralisation in drilling, but we are yet to drill that ‘new discovery’ hole – so the work goes on.”

The next step at Lynn Lake is to analyse all exploration results and plan for the next field season.

“A key part of the prioritising between both projects is driven by seasonal considerations which broadly speaking sees us on the ground at Lynn Lake in the northern winter months when the surface is firmer due to the frozen nature of the landscape, and then move focus back to the cobalt at Mt Gilmore as is currently happening,” Smith explained.

With the quality of assets in the Corazon portfolio, the potential rewards for the company and its shareholders are significant, and continue to make Corazon a stock that is keenly followed.

Corazon Mining Limited (ASX: CZN)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Level 1
350 Hay Street
Subiaco WA  6008

Ph: +61 8 6364 0518   
Fax: +61 8 6210 1872

Email: info@corazon.com.au
Web: www.corazon.com.au

DIRECTORS
Clive Jones, Brett Smith, Jonathon Downes, Adrian Byass

Investigator Resources Explores Paris Silver Lining

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THE INSIDE STORY: Infill drilling conducted at a silver-copper project in the southern Gawler Craton, South Australia, supported Investigator Resource’s (ASX: IVR) belief that its Paris project is Australia’s best undeveloped silver deposit.

“The infill program completed in late 2016 achieved a significant increase of 26 percent to 42 million ounces of contained silver at a grade of 139 grams per tonne, which is way above any of our peer deposits as far as grade goes,” Investigator Resources managing director John Alexander told The Resources Roadhouse.

“It’s a very robust project.

“With the infill drilling we confirmed the geological model for the project and believe there’s potential to add another 20 percent from an area we now recognise we haven’t drilled, but we’re happy with where the resource now stands, especially with the upgrade which converted 55 percent of our contained ounces to indicated.

“We’ve now got ourselves into a position where we can now move into a pre-feasibility study.”

The component of the recently announced resource – classified as Indicated – largely corresponds with the area of infill drilling and shows a 41 percent increase in grade to 163g/t silver over the 2015 Inferred resource of 8.8 million tonnes at 116g/t silver for 35 million ounces of silver.

The revised resource was independently prepared by H & S Consulting Pty Ltd (H&SC) using the Multiple Indicator Kriging (MIK) method of estimation, considered the most suitable estimation method for the complex mineralisation style of the Paris deposit.

The mineral resource estimates were reported using a silver cut-off grade of 50g/t and were constrained to above the 25 metres relative level (mRL).

As well as the high grades for the open pit development scenario the tonnage grade profiles also offered flexibilities by adjusting the cut-off grades for more ounces at times of higher silver prices; e.g. to 30g/t cut-off for 50 million ounces silver or to higher grades at times of lower silver prices; e.g. to 70g/t cut-off for 6.2 million tonnes at 179g/t silver for 36 million ounces.

The retention of the bulk of the ounces at the high cut-off is a reflection of the robust grade profile for the Paris project.

Investigator discovered the Paris silver resource in 2011 and then developed flow-on discovery opportunities for copper-gold porphyry-style deposit at Nankivel, five kilometres southeast of the Paris project all within the company’s 100 percent-held Peterlumbo Tenement.

The Paris silver deposit is the first solid discovery in South Australia of an epithermal deposit style.

The Peterlumbo tenement is 583 square kilometres in size and located in the pastoral country of the northern Eyre Peninsula district approximately 350 kilometres northwest of Adelaide and 60 kilometres northwest of the town of Kimba.

Anderson said that company would now concentrate on the pre-feasibility study and does not need to go back to drilling Paris at this time.

“The extent of the resource has been pretty well defined and we’ve closed the drilling,” he explained.

“However, having said that there’s lots of exploration potential to add resource to Paris in satellite deposits, in fact Paris may be a satellite deposit to something bigger going on with regards to the mineral system.

“It’s quite shallow with the shallowest mineralisation coming to within 5m of the surface and stems down to about 160 metres.

“It’s a breccia so it’s highly variable in grade and distribution of the resource box but we’ve been drilling with a lot more confidence knowing that high-grade parts of the deposit are very much part and parcel of the resource population.

“That’s the main reason we’ve been able to increase the grade and resource to contained ounces basically by infill drilling an area that had previously been drilled.”

On the subject of production, Anderson said that once the pre-feasibility had been completed he expected the company to move quickly onto full feasibility, but he felt it would be several years before the decision to mine was made. 

In the meantime, optimisation studies are being conducted regarding high-grade starter pits, mineralised waste and the type of metallurgical options available to treat the ore.

“The choices we’re looking at came out of our original metallurgical work in 2013 which produced positive results in both leaching and flotation.

Standard leaching is the likely best option but we are also looking at flotation as an alternative to produce a concentrate we could possibly sell to a smelter.”

The soft host rock and shallow depth of the Paris deposit offers the potential for an open pit mining operation and H&SC has modelled and classified the Paris resource in accordance with this assumption.

“We’re a lot smaller than a project like Carrapateena but we’re at the surface and the Paris project is a very good fit for a company of our size, however we are aiming higher,” Anderson said.

“There’s potential for more silver, but more importantly larger copper-gold targets in the immediate Paris area.

“We believe the Nankivel prospect, just five kilometres south of Paris, is the start.

“We’ve located a large intrusive system, which is the centre to the whole mineral system, to which we think Paris is a satellite epithermal deposit and we see potential for other shallow epithermal deposits over the Nankivel area.

“We’re postulating that there’s porphyry copper-gold potential deeper under the epithermal outcrops.

“That’s a real breakthrough for South Australian geology because we believe these rocks are Olympic Dam age and that’s really challenging the dogma that Olympic Dam is a style where you wouldn’t expect porphyry deposits to be associated within the same province.”

Co-funded by the South Australian Plan for Accelerating Exploration (PACE) drilling initiative, results from Investigator’s first hole at Nankivel in August, 2016, strongly implied the hole was on the margin of a copper-gold mineralised porphyry system.

Four diamond drill holes were drilled in early 2017 aimed at Induce Polarisation chargeability anomalies within a large demagnetised zone.

All holes intersected potassic-altered porphyritic monzodiorite over the drilled area variously showing the fracturing, veining and multiple intrusives expected in a mineralised porphyry system.

The potassic alteration has the minerals expected in a mineralised porphyry – potash feldspar, biotite, magnetite and tourmaline.

The assays are pending, but the copper mineralisation is visually estimated to be low to modest in content and is not expected to produce significant grades.

The mineral zoning suggests that any higher-grade copper shell to a modelled late intrusive is at least 500m below the surface beneath current drilling.

Although deep, there is alteration and intrusive evidence for multiple porphyry events at Nankivel that implies shallower (telescoped) porphyry deposits.

The nearest town to the project is Kimba about 60km to the southeast with the Iron Road iron ore project to the west and the major town of Whyalla another 140km to the east.

Anderson said railway and port facilities were not a consideration as the company planned to produce silver dore that could be trucked quite easily.

A likely water source has been identified in a large palaeochannel aquifer 12km east of the Paris project through prior Investigator drilling and collaborative airborne electromagnetic surveying by CSIRO.

Investigator Resources Limited (ASX: IVR)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
18 King Street
Norwood SA 5067

Ph: +61 8 7325 2222

Email: info@investres.com.au
Web: www.investres.com.au

DIRECTORS
David Ransom, John Anderson, Bruce Foy, David Jones

Mallee Bull at home in resource-rich environment

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THE INSIDE STORY: Peel Mining (ASX: PEX) has commenced an infill drilling program at its high grade, near-surface T1 zinc, lead, silver lens at its Mallee Bull deposit near Cobar in Western New South Wales. By Ron Berryman

Excellent preliminary flotation metallurgical testwork results supported the company’s belief that the T1 prospect potentially represents an attractive early production opportunity ahead of the development of Mallee Bull’s predominant copper-silver-gold mineralisation.

A maiden JORC compliant Mineral Resource estimate for Mallee Bull was completed in May 2014, coming in at: 3.9 million tonnes at 2.3 per cent copper, 32g/t silver and 0.3g/t gold for 90,000 tonnes of contained copper, 4 million ounces contained silver and 43,000 ounces contained gold.

“The high-grade zinc-lead-silver that we have got at T1 is very close to the surface and with this latest reverse circulation (RC) drill campaign of about 4,000 metres we are looking to update the Resource at T1 in advance of a prefeasibility study,” Peel Mining managing director Rob Tyson told The Resources Roadhouse.

“However, Mallee Bull remains Peel Mining’s number one project.

“We have also just completed a global Resource update that now includes lead and zinc mineralisation.

“The overall resource has grown by 65 per cent to approximately 6.8 million tonnes at 2.6 per cent copper equivalent and reflects the considerable exploration success that we have had at Mallee Bull since May 2014.

“Mallee Bull is primarily a copper deposit but also has good silver, gold, lead and zinc mineralisation.”

Tyson added that while Cobar was probably best known for copper mining it wasn’t unusual to find other minerals.

All of the mines in the region possess that make-up of metals, but it varies as to which ones are most important.

Located at the crossroads of the Kidman Highway to Queensland and the Barrier Highway to South Australia, copper was discovered at Cobar in 1869 and the importance of the mineral to the state’s economy resulted in it becoming known as ‘Copper City’.

Cobar is ranked second, only to Broken Hill, in terms of mining renown in NSW and has been a constant major exploration target zone over the years.

The town has suffered from the lack of a reliable water supply from the time of its establishment with the only supply coming from a single small earth dam but this soon proved inadequate for the developing mines and increasing population.

The Cobar Water Board was established in 1963 giving it the power to construct a pipeline and install pumping machinery to transport water from Nyngan to Cobar.

The first pipeline, a 300 millimetre diameter pipe, was constructed in 1963 followed by a second pipeline, 375mm diameter, laid parallel to the existing line in 1983.

Although the population of Cobar has, at times, reached 10,000 the present number is closer to 4,000, which is mainly supported by the mining industry.

Over the years mining in the region has produced major amounts of copper-lead-zinc-silver and gold plus minor quantities of by-products such as cadmium and antimony.

“T1 is very high-grade and discrete, but we do have some other good lead-zinc mineralisation elsewhere in the main copper dominant system,” Tyson said.

“It is reasonably common in these sorts of deposits that you get this zonation of metals.

“We anticipate this infill drilling program is going to underpin a pre-feasibility study.”

Peel Mining has been conducting ongoing metallurgical testwork on the lead and zinc with excellent results.

“Metallurgically the T1 deposit looks quite positive so the next step is to complete the infill drilling and remodel that part of the Resource from a pre-feasibility perspective,” Tyson explained.

A metallurgical drillhole that was recently completed at the T1 lens returned the prospect’s best zinc-lead-silver intercept to date of:

13.5 metres at 21.1 per cent zinc, 14.1 per cent lead and 268 grams per tonne silver from 82m.

Preliminary metallurgical testwork carried out on the zinc-lead-silver mineralisation yielded overall metal recoveries up to 90.3 per cent zinc, 92.3 per cent lead and 82.3 per cent copper, producing separate lead and zinc concentrates with grades of 55.6 per cent lead, 13.1 per cent zinc, 780g/t silver and 49.6 per cent zinc, 2.4 per cent lead and 75g/t silver respectively.

Full elemental analysis, including gold, is pending.

All chemical analysis was conducted at Endeavour’s mine laboratory facilities owned by Mallee Bull Joint Venture partner CBH Resources.

Tyson said the mining concept being developed for T1 was based around a dig and truck operation from Mallee Bull to the Endeavour mine north of Cobar, a trip of about 160 kilometres.

“We are looking at a small scale operation to get Mallee Bull into production at a relatively low capital cost, from where we can hopefully lower the risk scenario because we are not building significant infrastructure.

“We are basing it around a light presence with infrastructure and capital investment because the grade is very high and we’ll hopefully be able to generate some positive cash flow that can go back into the project, or a significant part of it for increased investigation of the mineralisation.

“We are examining both underground and open pit scenarios for T1.

“If it all stacks up, we would then consider driving a decline to deeper levels at Mallee Bull where the best mineralisation exists.

“One possible scenario could be driving a decline down to 300 metres for underground diamond drilling, which is a lot cheaper.”

Tyson said Peel Mining’s current timeline for the project was to finish pre-feasibility by the end of August and feasibility by the end of the year or early 2018.

“If everything goes well in terms of permitting and approvals, I’m hoping we might be in a position by the end of next year to be able to break the earth,” he continued

On the subject of local infrastructure, Tyson explained the Kidman Highway was only five kilometres from Mallee Bull, while the project sits juts 15km from the Moomba-Sydney gas pipeline, and at 100km from Cobar and the company has access to water.

“If we use a dig and truck method we won’t need much water, just enough for dust suppression,” Tyson said.

The Mallee Bull deposit, is located on an 80 square kilometre tenement owned by Peel Mining and 50 per cent Joint Venture partner CBH Resources.

Mallee Bull lies adjacent to the historic 4-Mile Goldfield and was initially identified as a coincident electromagnetic (EM) and magnetic geophysical anomaly in 2011.

Preliminary RC and Diamond drilling has been carried out to test this anomaly, which encountered elevated levels of silver-lead-zinc mineralisation.

Subsequent drilling the same year intersected a massive and stringer/breccia sulphide zone with strong copper-silver-gold-lead-zinc-cobalt values, all of which are considered to be characteristics of major Cobar-style deposits.

In May 2012, Peel and CBH Resources signed a binding Heads of Agreement giving CBH the right to earn an interest of up to 50 per cent over a three-year period via a staged $8.33 million expenditure on exploration and contribution to previous exploration costs incurred by Peel.

CBH Resources completed its final Farm-in payment in 2014.

Peel Mining Ltd. (ASX: PEX)
… The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Unit 1
34 Kings Park Road
West Perth WA 6005

Ph: (08) 9382 3955

Email: info@peelmining.com.au
Web: www.peelmining.com.au

DIRECTORS
Rob Tyson, Simon Hadfield, Graham Hardie

 

Market Watch at Diggers & Dealers 2017

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Market Watch at Diggers & Dealers 2017

THE CONFERENCE CALLER: One of The Roadhouse’s favourite Diggers & Dealers-related activities is to watch how the daily presentations are rated by the market.

Sure, there are a lot of people away from their desks, and to be fair, because the conference is held two time zones away from the country’s central stick market, any news – good or bad – that is delivered by presenters, usually won’t have much effect until the next day.

Savvy broker types will most likely be up early in the morning, pounding away on keyboards as they eat breakfast.

Either that or they will have placed their orders the previous afternoon, allowing them to email their clients, so they can sleep in until lunchtime.

Gold plays, of course, dominate not only the Kalgoorlie skyline, but also the city’s major conference, so we’re sure to hear that the most glittering of prizes is holding its own in the current atmosphere.

A couple of lithium lays have made the grade for a presentation spot, which is a dip of the lid to its standing in the technology sector, and acknowledgement that electric cars will soon be creating traffic snarls around afternoon private school pickups.

Below is the how this year’s presenters closed last night, or yesterday afternoon for those of us in the west.

Looking across the board it still seems that, even though we’re expecting a bumper crowd in Kal next week, it’s still pretty hard to gain any traction share price-wise in the current market.

There’s a few who were flying high late last year, even early this year, who have come back to the pack, as well as a few that haven’t really been able live up to the hype (some may call it potential) they insisted they brought to the party.

We’ll be providing a daily check on the what goes down – or up – during the week.

 

Northern Hemisphere Shines on S2 Resources

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THE INSIDE STORY: S2 Resources (ASX: S2R) celebrates its second anniversary this October – just as the Northern Lights, aurora borealis, reappear over Swedish Lapland to rejoice in their own electrically charged skyward festival. By Margie Livingston

In just two short years, S2 Resources has established a strategic land holding in Scandinavia, achieved exploration success across its projects and has remained well positioned to fund further exploration and expansion in its quest to discover the next ‘Nova’.

With a shareholder base and management team established on the back of Sirius Resources’ Nova success, S2 feels the weight of expectation, and believes Scandinavia may well be the region that contains terrific opportunity and the next noteworthy result for investors.

The company’s current priority is its Scandinavian projects where it expects better outcomes per drilling dollar spent.

“We believe, that at the current time, our drilling dollars will be more intelligently spent on the projects in Sweden and Finland, rather than Western Australia, because there are numerous targets with surface or near surface clues” S2 Resources managing director and CEO Dr Mark BennetThe Resources Roadhouse.

S2’s exploration has advanced with positive drilling and geophysical results at the Bjurtraskgruvan and Skaggtraskberget VMS prospects within its 100 per cent-owned Skellefte project in Sweden.

The last prospect drilled at Bjurtraskgruvan during the northern hemisphere winter returned the best intersection yet and an electromagnetic survey suggests it might continue for another 450 metres down plunge.

“A single hole drilled 135 metres down plunge from previous S2 drilling at Bjurtraskgruvan intersected the thickest zone of copper mineralisation seen so far,” Bennett said.

The hole intersected a 24.4m thick zone grading 1.1 per cent copper from 220.7m, comprising remobilised veinlets of chalcopyrite, with several intervals of higher grade copper mineralisation, including:

1.05m at 4.11 per cent copper, 0.65 per cent zinc and 19 grams per tonne silver from 221.5m and

3.6m at 2.44 per cent copper and 11.5g/t silver from 224.3m.

The new intersection is considered close to true width, and demonstrates the Bjurtraskgruvan VMS system extends for at least 450m down plunge from its outcrop, remaining open down plunge.

A downhole electromagnetic survey identified a conductor centred approximately 30m to the east of the hole, suggesting the intercept may be adjacent to more massive sulphides.

In addition, the results of a new fixed loop electromagnetic (FLEM) survey defined a large plunging conductor extending a further 470m down plunge from this hole, for a total plunge extent of 900m – so far.

The VTEM anomaly highlights the up-plunge near surface projection of the VMS system, but FLEM better indicates the potential size, extent and position of it at depth.

S2’s drilling and geophysics confirms the Bjurtraskgruvan prospect comprises an elongated shoot which represents a substantial volume of mineralised material.

“The focus of future drilling at Bjurtraskgruvan will be to define its limits and identify any higher grade sweet spots within the overall system,” Bennett said.

Meanwhile, at Skaggtraskberget, a prospect located 4.5 kilometres west of Bjurtraskgruvan, deeper drilling represents an opportunity where S2 has confirmed the presence of a 350m long mineralised zone containing elevated levels of silver and will continue to assess and explore in this world-class VMS belt.

Drilling will recommence in Sweden once the spring thaw is completed with Skaggtraskberget likely to be the first drilled in the summer drilling campaign.

With ground being exposed by melting snow, various targets and prospects in Sweden and Finland will be explored using surface prospecting.

Two large new exploration licences surrounding granted licences at Nasvattnet and Tjalmtrask have been applied for and surface prospecting will include searching for the source of the clusters of mineralised boulders at these two prospects.

In addition to applying for exploration licences in Sweden, S2 has been increasing its tenure in the Central Lapland Greenstone Belt (CLGB) in Finland following the recent discovery of outcropping high-grade gold mineralisation at the nearby Aurora zone of the Risti gold prospect, owned by TSXV-listed Aurion Resources.

This discovery reaffirms S2’s view of the CLGB being a potentially highly endowed but under-explored gold province.

S2’s summer drilling campaign will also involve first pass field assessment of this extensive land package, approximately 1,030 square metres.

The company believes its focus on the Scandinavian region deserves a strong human resources presence to ensure effective management of exploration programs.

“S2 is fully committed to its Scandinavian projects and as such three Perth based geologists have relocated to northern Sweden,” Bennett explained.

“This is a direct reflection of our commitment to exploration in the region and managing programs meticulously and expeditiously.”

With the northern hemisphere being a focus for S2 it seems the name of its Western Australian asset may have taken inspiration from the north as well.

‘Polar Bear’ is a large unexplored holding in the heart of the WA goldfields, on trend from major gold mines.

The Baloo-Nanook trend is a 10km long prospective corridor with three gold hotspots in wide spaced shallow aircore drilling.

To date, 348,000 ounces of gold resources have been delineated at Baloo and Nanook.
 
However great the potential of Polar Bear it is not, at this stage, a priority.

“While we focus on projects in Finland and Sweden the company could entertain ways of divesting Polar Bear” Bennett said.

“As a junior resource company, we are always looking at ways to grow and add value for shareholders.

“Our focus is on mainstream commodities such as gold and base metals in politically stable jurisdictions such as Australia and Europe.

“We constantly look at opportunities with low sovereign risk and well developed infrastructure, which both regions have.

The Fraser Institute’s 2016 annual survey of mining and exploration companies (published February 2017) determined the top jurisdictions in the world for investment based on the Investment Attractiveness Index, which takes into consideration both mineral and policy perception, are Saskatchewan, Manitoba, WA, Nevada, Finland, Quebec, Arizona, Sweden, the Republic of Ireland and Queensland.

“We like North America as a jurisdiction and Nevada in particular, as it is a prolific gold district,”Bennett enthused.

“There is huge production and resources in the area with 10, 20, 30 million ounce deposits and more big deposits still being found.

“Our shareholders would obviously like S2 to discover another Nova, something big, and as a Board we aim to find an elephant rather than a tiddler.

“To do that, our search for assets to complement and increase our portfolio, which hopefully leads to a large discovery, is an ongoing process and one that is global.”

S2 is well positioned to achieve this objective with a highly successful team of explorers, a breadth of corporate experience, a portfolio of highly prospective and strategic ground and a strong balance sheet.

“Our Scandinavian prospects are exciting and we are fortunate to be in a position of having the cash to be able to seriously consider acquisition or joint venture opportunities,” Bennett said.

“Our objective is to find the next big prospect – it might be next month or it might be a few years, but we are focusing on that.”

As the mysterious phenomena of the Northern Lights dances in the skies over the northern magnetic pole, perhaps it will shine some magic over S2’s current and future prospects, leading to that next phenomenal discovery.

S2 Resources (ASX; S2R)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
North Wing, Level 2
1 Manning Street
Scarborough WA 6019

Ph: +61 8 6166 0240

Email: admin@s2resources.com.au
Web: www.s2resources.com.au

DIRECTORS
Jeff Dowling, Mark Bennett, Anna Neuling, Grey Egerton Warburton.