Alien Metals (UFO ) said its inaugural drilling programme on the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project located within the Pilbara region of Australia is due to commence ‘in the coming days.’
The minerals exploration and development company told investors that it has commenced a diamond drill rig to commence the inaugural programme at the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project.
The programme’s focus is the production of the highest quality core from the ore body's main zones to enable a better understanding of the orebody and to help develop next stage work.
The Elizabeth Hill Silver project area (Fig 1) includes the Mining Lease containing the historic Elizabeth Hill Silver Mine and the Munni Munni North Exploration Lease that surrounds it. Bill
Bill Brodie Good, Chief Executive and Technical Director of Alien Metals said the Company has been aware of the potential of historic silver tailings at Elizabeth Hill “for some time.”
Good said the West Pilbara is “a world class mineral province” with the potential to discover a major new significant nickel, copper and PGE hosting system in and around Elizabeth Hill.
He said this is similar to the recently discovered VC7 and Andover nickel-cobalt discoveries along with the known, but still to be fully defined, Carlow Castle, Radio Hill and Mt Sholl precious and base metals discoveries.
As part of its planned programme, Alien Metals intends to drill 7 diamond core holes for a planned total of 650 metres in order to test for extensions to the known mineralisation both along strike and at depth and to complete initial verification work (QA/QC) on historical drilling.
Alien informed investors that the drilling programme will also aim to test its belief that the historical silver ore body forms part of a much larger and widespread mineralised system.
Historical drilling has intersected incredibly high-grade zones with numerous intersections over 10,000 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold and a peak assay of 34,300 g/t of gold (3.4% Ag).
The mine has also produced Australia's largest silver nugget to date, namely the Karratha Queen, that weighed in at 145kg (4,677 ounces) which is now on display in the Perth Mint.
Historically, the vast majority of holes were very poorly sampled and assayed with the majority only being assayed for silver and numerous references of disseminated sulphides were made in the geological logging but never fully followed up along with several significant anomalies.
As a result, Alien said it will carry out a full suite analysis on all relevant drill cores to get a more detailed understanding of the potential of the Elizabeth Hill orebody and its envelope.
Commenting on the programme, Brodie Good said: "We have completed a considerable amount of research reviewing over 20 years of historical data on this project area, combined with the recent work by Southern Geoscience and our other technical consultants.”
He said, “We are very excited to be commencing our inaugural drilling programme, which we feel will add significant understanding to the known silver mineralisation, as well as targeting what we believe to be an even larger mineralised system that the silver orebody sits within.”
"The Company believes that a number of targets were never fully followed up on, hence this initial 7 hole programme will focus on the historic orebody and its immediate surroundings.”
View from Vox
In June 2021, Alien was granted a further 30-day extension to its previously signed agreement ( in March 2021) over the Elizabeth Hill Silver Tailings Project, thereby enabling it to finish a series of metallurgical and recovery tests and interpret the study’s full results.
The extension followed ‘excellent’ initial metallurgical results from the Elizabeth Hill in May 2021 which delivered six samples indicating high levels of silver recovery.
At the time, Alien said it would undertake more sample work and analysis to better understand the most efficient and cost-effective processes to extract the silver from the tailings.
Alien believes the silver tailings project could generate near-term cash flow which could help underpin a range of exploration activities at Elizabeth Hill and the Munni Munni North project.
Reasons to UFO
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.
Follow News & Updates from Alien Metals here: