Impact Minerals To Acquire Advanced HPA Project In WA

Impact Minerals Limited (ASX:IPT) is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding term sheet with Playa One Pty Ltd, an unrelated private company, to earn an 80% interest in the advanced Lake Hope High Purity Alumina (HPA) Project in Western Australia.

• Impact to acquire an 80% interest in the Lake Hope Project, an advanced High Purity Alumina (HPA) project located near Hyden, in the Tier One jurisdiction of Western Australia.
  
• Lake Hope, a dry playa lake, contains a globally unique deposit of extremely fine-grained (<16 microns), very pure, high-grade aluminous clays in the top few metres of the lake bed.
• An Exploration Target for contained HPA alumina (Al₂O₃) in the top 0.5 m to 1.5 m or so has been calculated from initial drill results of between 2.6 million to 4.7 million tonnes at a grade of between 24.3% Al₂O₃ and 26.7% Al₂O₃ for a contained 0.63Mt to 1.25Mt of Al₂O_3.
  Investors should be aware that the potential size and grade of the alumina deposit at Lake Hope are conceptual in nature. Insufficient work has been undertaken to estimate a JORC 2012-compliant Mineral Resource Estimate, and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource.
• The deposit remains open at depth and further drilling is in progress.
• The unique geological properties of the Lake Hope deposit allow for a shallow, very low-cost, free-digging operation only a few metres deep and with offsite metallurgical processing at an established industrial site.
• The proposed operation would have a small environmental footprint and low carbon emissions.
• Bench-scale metallurgical test work has produced alpha-HPA on representative material via a disruptive sulphuric acid hydrometallurgical process likely to be cost-competitive with other producers and developers in Australia and globally.
• Impact will focus its immediate activities on the lodgement of a Mining Lease Application by mid-2023. This work includes the definition of a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate, completing a Scoping Study and commencement of a Pre-Feasibility Study to include baseline environmental studies and continuing discussions with the Ngadju First Nations group on their involvement.
• Impact aims to bring Lake Hope into production to deliver high-margin end-products into a rapidly expanding global market with a forecast average price for 4N HPA (99.99% Al₂O₃) and related products of about US$20,000 per tonne.
  
• The work programme will be led by experienced geologist Roland Gotthard who discovered the Lake Hope deposit and pioneered the metallurgical process. He is the major shareholder of Playa One Pty Limited.
• Exploration to continue at Broken Hill under the BHP Xplor programme and the Arkun battery metals project in Western Australia.

The Project contains a globally unique deposit of high-grade aluminium clay minerals in the top few metres of a playa lake, which has unique physical and chemical properties that allow for low-cost mining and offsite metallurgical processing via a novel and cost-disruptive acid leaching process.

Preliminary economic studies indicate that the production of HPA and related products from Lake Hope will be cost-competitive with current producers and other developers in Australia and globally.

Impact's Managing Director, Dr Mike Jones, said: “This is a watershed day for Impact Minerals and its

shareholders. We believe the Lake Hope project presents an unrivalled opportunity to put the company firmly on the path to low-cost production in the rapidly expanding and high-margin HPA business.

Combining a globally unique deposit within the top few metres of a playa salt lake and a straightforward metallurgical process offers a disruptive entry into the HPA space.

The deposit was discovered in the past two years by Roland Gotthard, the major shareholder of Playa One, in a classic case of lateral thinking about the nature and source of aluminium-bearing minerals. In addition, he has developed a breakthrough metallurgical process. We had been following Roland’s work for some time. We were intrigued enough to contact him and evaluate the project, only to be astounded at what had been discovered and the potential for the project to be a significant contributor to the global HPA market.

We are pleased to welcome Roland on board at Impact as Project Manager to lead the company towards production from Lake Hope over the next few years. We believe that the unique properties of the deposit will allow for fast-tracking of the statutory approvals process for both mining and processing, and we aim to lodge a mining lease application by mid-year. We will also be building out our capabilities in metallurgical processing and end-product development to cater for the specialist requirements of the end users of HPA.

I believe this to be a transformational acquisition for Impact, and myself, the Board and the entire Impact team are looking forward with great enthusiasm to the challenge that awaits us and ensuring that Impact Minerals is the next "playa” in HPA.”

Click here for the full ASX Release

This article includes content from Impact Minerals, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.