Alien Metals (UFO ) said it continues to advance the Hancock Iron Ore Project by engaging the mining consultancy firm Mining Plus to carry out a scoping study at the project area.
The global minerals exploration and development company said the scoping study follows the maiden JORC compliant inferred resource of 10.4Mt @ 60.4% Fe (including 7.8Mt @ 60.1% Fe at the Sirius Extension target and 2.6Mt @ 61.5% Fe at the Ridges targets) at Hancock.
The Company highlights to investors that the results of this work are due shortly and that it expects to announce the findings of this work with a subsequent live webinar next Tuesday.
Bill Brodie Good, CEO & Technical Director of Alien Metals, said: “After the rapid progress since acquiring the Hancock Iron Ore Project, including the recent initial mineral resource estimate (MRE), we have continued to advance the project through engaging Mining Plus to complete the Scoping Study, which provides an initial economic assessment of the MRE.”
He commented, “Mining Plus provides a highly credentialed team with recent work including the design and planning of another high-grade DSO project in Western Australia.”
Bordie Good added that in the meantime, Alien continues to plan and make preparations for the Phase 3 drilling programme that will target extensions of the high-grade, low strip ridges.
Last week, the Company said ongoing drilling at the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project continues to produce visible sulphides and silver and is providing “excellent geological information.”
In September, Alien said it was “extremely encouraged” by the initial findings of its inaugural drilling program at the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia.
This inaugural program is designed to test some of the historic drilling undertaken over 20 years ago for quality control (QA/QC) purposes, but also to test the Company’s belief that the historical silver ore body forms part of a much larger and widespread mineralised system.
In September, the minerals exploration and development firm said ‘multiple occurrences’ of visible silver have been identified in the drill core which were recovered from shallow drilling.
It said drilling had confirmed its geological interpretation that the original Elizabeth Hill silver deposit appears to be associated with a much larger polymetallic mineralised system.
Last week, Alien Metals announced that visible sulphides and native silver have been observed in core and reverse circulation (RC) chips, which appears to support the Company’s view that a larger polymetallic halo exists around the original high-grade silver deposit.
In its recently published results for the six months to 30 June 2021, Alien Metals highlighted a number of recent positive developments, including its recently declared maiden inferred resource in excess of 10Mt @60.4% Fe at the group’s Hancock Iron Ore Project.
The results were ‘significantly’ ahead of expectations with low levels of deleterious elements indicating that the project could produce high-quality Direct Shipping Ore products.
The Company highlighted that ridges E and C at Hancock are only partially tested to date, and that it feels there is ‘considerable’ potential to define further DSO grade material.
‘With only a quarter of the Western Ridges targets tested to date, we believe there is considerable scope to grow the DSO resource over the next 6 months,’ it told investors.
Whilst Capstone Mining Corp decided not to proceed with the farm-in JV in June 2021, the Company said it continues to see potential in the Donovan 2 copper-gold project in Mexico.
Commenting on the interim results, Dan Smith, Chairman of Alien Metals said: “In addition to driving value in our existing portfolio of assets, we continue to be presented with a number of potential acquisition opportunities across a range of commodities and geographies.”
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