Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) is an exploration and development mining company focused on discovering and developing new resource projects within Australia. Lake Hope, a recent transformational acquisition by the company and its current flagship asset, is a high-purity alumina (HPA) project in Impact’s home territory of Western Australia, a tier-one jurisdiction.
This advanced-stage project allows the company to fast-track the asset toward development, firmly establishing the company on the road to production and increasing shareholder value.
HPA is a high-value product with various uses in several industries that are key to the transition to a low-carbon world. Its main uses are in LED lighting, micro-LED screens, and ceramic-coated separators in lithium-ion batteries. Both these markets are forecast to grow dramatically over the next decade, and a looming supply shortage is predicted for 2026.
HPA is also necessary for producing synthetic sapphire and scratch-resistant glass. With these ever-widening applications for HPA, demand for this resource is expected to grow from US$3.18 billion to US$12.21 billion by 2030 with a compounded annual growth rate of about 20 percent.
Lake Hope is the company’s current focus as it moves towards production, and where a very shallow, high-grade resource of HPA precursor material has been identified in the top two meters of a dry salt lake. The deposit has unique physical and chemical properties that will allow for inexpensive digging and mining, with transportation to a processing facility off-site in an established industrial area. This will accelerate the approvals processes required to get into production.
Impact is currently focused on lodging a mining lease application. The company aims to bring Lake Hope, which contains almost 1 million tons of potential HPA, into production when the forecast average price for 4N HPA (99.99 percent AL203) and related products is about US$20,000 per ton. The ‘4N’ designation indicates the purity grade, making it suitable for high-tech end uses.
Outstanding economics from the latest scoping study released by the company shows Lake Hope’s potential to be the lowest-cost producer of HPA globally by up to 50 percent.
In June 2023, Impact announced a maiden mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 3.5 million tons at 25.1 percent alumina (Al2O3) for a contained 880,000 tons of alumina. The company also received heritage clearances for the entire Lake Hope deposit further de-risking the project and providing another critical component in the company’s application for a mining lease.
Impact completed a bulk sampling and test pits program at the Lake Hope project in December 2023. The company recently announced a key milestone having produced HPA greater than 99.99 percent (4N) purity from the metallurgical processing of lake clays acquired from Lake Hope.
In February 2024, a new proprietary metallurgical process for producing HPA from the lake clays was identified. Impact produced 99.99 percent (4N) Al2O3 from a low-temperature leach (LTL) process. The LTL process may lower the capital and operating costs to produce HPA compared to the sulphate process which underpinned the recent scoping study. The LTL process will be included in the ongoing pre-feasibility study in parallel with the sulphate process at marginal extra cost to determine the best processing route to HPA. The PFS is due to be completed on schedule in late 2024.
A comparison of the LTL process and the sulphate process
The company received a significant research and development refund of $753,000 from its exploration activities completed in the financial year ending June 30th, 2022. The company is well funded to finance the pre-feasibility study at the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina project and exploration activities at the Arkun battery minerals project.
Impact Minerals was also one of the inaugural cohort of seven companies selected to be part of the prestigious BHP Xplor program. BHP Xplor, an accelerator program introduced by BHP in August 2022, is designed to help provide participants with the opportunity to accelerate their growth and the potential to establish a long-term partnership with BHP and its global network of partners.
The BHP Xplor funding was used to identify new target areas for copper and other energy metals around the Broken Hill area in New South Wales, eastern Australia, where Impact has been quietly adding to its ground position for several years.
Additionally, the company is exploring its large Arkun battery metals project, also in Western Australia which covers nearly 2,900 square kilometres. Three new exploration licence applications were submitted recently immediately north of the Arkun project along trend from the recently discovered REE soil geochemistry anomalies at Hyperion, Swordfish and Horseshoe, and the Caligula copper anomaly. These anomalies require drill testing which will occur in 2024 and is an exciting development in the emerging mineral province of southwest WA.
A strong management team with over 50 years of combined industry experience leads the company. With a mining and exploration geology degree, Dr. Mike Jones, managing director, launched a long career consulting and leading mining organizations. Peter Unsworth, the non-executive chairman, has more than 35 years of experience in multiple financial sectors, such as securities industries and wealth management. Paul Ingram, a non-executive director, has led several mining companies since 2003. Impact Minerals has the experience and expertise to lead the company to success.
Impact Minerals’ Lake Hope HPA project is in Western Australia, a tier-one mining jurisdiction. HPA is a crucial component in many new and emerging technologies, creating ongoing demand for high-grade sources. The Lake Hope project has become the company’s flagship as it moves toward production.
The scoping study was underpinned by a sulphuric acid process allowing the company to achieve a new milestone by producing HPA with purity of more than than 99.99 percent (4N) from the metallurgical processing of lake clays acquired from Lake Hope. The company further identified a new proprietary metallurgical process for producing HPA from the lake clays. Known as the low-temperature leach (LTL) process, this also produced 99.99 percent (4N) Al2O3 and has the potential to lower even further the capital and operating costs to produce HPA compared to the sulphate process. The LTL process will be included in the ongoing pre-feasibility study along with the sulphate process to determine the best processing route to HPA. The PFS is due to be completed in late 2024.
The Broken Hill project has a significant land position of 815 square kilometers and hosts multiple targets with the potential for high-grade copper. Broken Hill is located in New South Wales, Australia, an area known for its prolific silver-lead-zinc mining operations and the giant Broken Hill deposit.
The Arkun project is a 2,900-square-kilometer nickel, copper and gold project located in the emerging Ni-Cu-PGE province near the world-class Julimar Ni-Cu-PGE deposit and surrounded by Anglo American Corporation, which secured its ground holding shortly after Impact secured its asset. Anglo-American is one of the world’s top ten mining companies, and their presence in the region brings confidence in the project’s potential.
Peter Unsworth, formerly a chartered accountant, has over 35 years of experience in the corporate finance, investment and securities industries and a wealth of management experience with public and private companies. A former executive director with a leading Western Australian stockbroking company, Unsworth has been a director of several public exploration and mining companies. He recently completed a long time serving as chairman of the Western Australian Government-owned Gold Corporation (operator of The Perth Mint). Unsworth is the founding chairman of Impact Minerals.
Dr. Mike Jones is the founding managing director of Impact Minerals Limited, which was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in November 2006. Reporting to the board of directors, he is responsible for the company's performance as it moves towards production at its Lake Hope High Purity Alumina Project and also for implementing strategies to explore and maximize the value of the company's other extensive tenement holdings.
Since listing, he has helped raise more than $60 million to help fund the exploration of Impact’s projects and managed the company through significant adverse events, including the global financial crisis and the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which affected Impact’s considerable investment in the uranium sector, a five-year global downturn in the mining sector and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul Ingram is a geologist with extensive experience managing major mineral exploration programs for several publicly listed companies and has been involved in the mining sector for over thirty years. He has designed and implemented innovative techniques for exploration in remote areas and has managed projects in countries throughout Australia and East Asia. Ingram has been a director of the following listed companies in the past three years: Polo Resources from January 2008 to January 2011; A-Cap Resources since June 2009; Consolidated Global Investments since September 2006; Caledon Resources from February 2003 to March 2008; and Australian Pacific Coal since March 2011.
Dr. Frank Bierlein is a geologist with 30 years of experience as a consultant, researcher, lecturer and industry professional. Bierlein has held exploration and generative geology management positions with QMSD Mining, Qatar Mining, Afmeco Australia and Areva NC, and consulted for, among others, Newmont Gold, Resolute Mining, Goldfields International, Freeport McMoRan, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is currently a non-executive director of PNX Metals. He was previously a non-executive director of Gold Australia NL and chaired the advisory board of a Luxembourg-based private equity fund between 2014 and 2021.
HIGHLIGHTS
Brightstar’s Managing Director, Alex Rovira, commented“The assays returned from Fish confirm the high-grade nature of the resource, with consistent mineralisation over several metres providing support for conventional underground mine designs and stoping widths at shallow depths. With the current Jasper Hills drilling program ending within a week2, on-going geological interpretations are being completed ahead of resource upgrades across the Brightstar portfolio, with our field team mobilising to conduct a RC program at the Montague East Gold Project in Sandstone in a months’ time.
While drilling at Jasper Hills, we also took the opportunity to process two Cork Tree Well geotechnical holes for gold assays, with pleasing results being returned given the focus of these holes were for gaining geotechnical data for open pit mining. CTWGT015 and CTWGT016 were drilled at the northernmost (Delta) deposit at Cork Tree Well in January 2023, within an optimised $2,750/oz pit shell generated during our 2023 Scoping Study3 for the broader Laverton Gold Project. The geotechnical information is being utilised by our mining consultants ahead of re- optimisations and the associated new pit designs for our Definitive Feasibility Study presently underway.
We look forward to sharing ongoing results as they are received, with assays still pending from Second Fortune (surface and underground DD drilling), Lady Shenton RC (Menzies), Cork Tree Well DD (Laverton), and both RC and diamond programs at Jasper Hills generating valuable information for Mineral Resource Estimate updates and various technical aspects of the DFS”.
TECHNICAL DISCUSSION
The Fish deposit ceased open-pit mining operations in 2012, with Crescent Gold Ltd mining 350kt at 3.83g/t Au from a single open pit and processed through the Granny Smith Processing Plant. Geological units observed in the Fish pit have been identified as amphibolite and intermediate intrusives, with felsic dykes, BIF interflow units and quartz veins also present within the pit.
Mineralisation in mined-out material was mainly hosted in BIF, which generally strikes and dips at 030/80E in what was a largely a linear and predictable fashion. This unit is described regionally as an interflow sediment with siliceous and magnetite banding. The hydrothermal deposit is somewhat polymetallic with trace to minor sulphides including pyrite, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, pentlandite, galena, sphalerite and bornite.
Beyond the RC holes identified within this release, Brightstar completed an additional diamond program totalling seven diamond tails drilled from RC drillhole pre-collars, and one diamond hole drilled from surface. Assays remain outstanding for these diamond holes, with core currently being processed for geotechnical and metallurgical purposes in conjunction with geological logging and analysis to provide valuable information for Definitive Feasibility Study and mine planning purposes.
Figure 1 - Plan view map of Fish drill collar locations
The goals of the combined RC/DD program were to infill and confirm the resource within and adjacent to the Stage 1 underground mine design, to generate sufficient mass for metallurgical testwork, and to test for depth extensions to mineralised lodes.
This article includes content from Brightstar Resources, 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.
All amounts expressed in US$
Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:GOLD) (TSX:ABX) New Porgera Limited (NPL) said today it is working with the United Nations (UN) and Enga Provincial Government (EPG) as part of an ad hoc crisis committee to assist with humanitarian aid to the conflict-ridden Porgera Valley in Papua New Guinea's Enga Province.
Following the committee's first meeting this Tuesday, it was agreed that a donor assessment team would travel to Porgera to make a first-hand assessment of the situation and community needs. NPL is providing logistical support, including a helicopter, to make this visit possible.
According to Papua New Guinea's Mineral Resource Authority managing director Jerry Garry, the wide-spread tribal violence in the area initially started in a dispute between two illegal miners from the Kandep and Laiagam districts which quickly escalated into local villages and the wider community.
NPL has been assisting the national Papua New Guinea government and EPG with disaster relief efforts since the deadly Mulitaka landslide on May 24 this year. NPL community relations officers were among the first on the ground after the landslide struck and have been assisting the UN and other agencies since. Senior NPL executives were also seconded to the Enga Provincial Disaster Management Committee to assist with relief work.
Barrick Gold Corporation and Zijin Mining Group – the 50:50 joint venture partners in Barrick Niugini Limited, part-owner of NPL with the government owning the rest – jointly donated $1 million to the relief while NPL donated food, temporary shelter and other essential items to afflicted families.
Other relief measures undertaken by the mine include fencing the Mulitaka Health Centre; repairing and reinforcing the Mulitaka High School for the temporary accommodation of disaster relief teams; donating mattresses and bedding for police; establishing a temporary fuel pipeline, helicopter air bridge and working with the Porgera Chamber of Commerce to provide much-needed fuel and supplies to the community. NPL is also working with the Government to complete a permanent bypass road that will restore the full access for the Porgera community that was cut off by the landslide.
Barrick enquiries
Investor and media relations
Kathy du Plessis
+44 20 7557 7738
Email: barrick@dpapr.com
Website: www.barrick.com
News Provided by GlobeNewswire via QuoteMedia