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Alba secures four-year extension at Clogau-St David

09:16, 11th February 2021
Francesca Morgan
Vox Newswire
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Alba Mineral Resources (ALBA FOLLOW) announced The Crown Estate has agreed to extend the duration of its exclusive exploration licence over the Clogau-St David's Gold Mine in north Wales.

The Company’s subsidiary, GMOW (Operations) Limited, was originally awarded a six-year exclusive exploration licence with effect from 10 February 2015 over a 107 km² area encompassing the Clogau-St David's Gold Mine and the majority of the Dolgellau Gold Belt.

The Exploration Licence has now been extended for a further four years; the maximum extension possible under the terms of the original licence. As such, the Exploration Licence will now remain in full force and effect until 9 February 2025, Alba told investors.

As previously detailed under the original licence terms, GMOW is required to submit formal progress reports every two years.  As and when GMOW is ready to proceed to commercial production, it will apply to convert the Exploration Licence into a formal, long-term lease.

"We are delighted to have secured the maximum possible extension to our exclusive exploration licence over the Clogau-St David's Gold Mine,” said George Frangeskides, Executive Chairman of Alba. 

He added, “We can now continue our progress towards reopening the mine, secure in the knowledge that our rights are protected into the future."

Last week, Alba reported its latest results from the ongoing Phase 1 surface drilling programme at Clogau. The results will allow Alba to project the newly identified vein system as extending some 66m below the deepest worked zone at the Llechfraith mine area.

The identification of this ‘significant’ projected lode structure now provides the Company with a significant zone for follow-up exploration drilling and bulk sampling.  The objective will be to access this zone directly from the Llechfraith shaft, once dewatered.  

This will enable far more targeted exploration than has been possible to date, initially by channel and bulk sampling from the newly dewatered No 4 Level and, in due course, by extending the existing Llechfraith Shaft from No 4 Level down 60 metres or so and creating a number of sublevels forking off from the shaft extension (Figure 1).

Fig 1: Conceptual mining layout from a deepened Llechfraith Shaft.  Projected lode structure (red) modelled from results of Phase 1 drilling (drill traces for LL003 and LL005 shown with quartz vein intercepts shown in purple and red).  Conceptual shaft and sub-levels (yellow) indicative of further development which would allow ready access to the lode

 
(Source: Alba Mineral Resources) 

This phase will target the 550m Main Lode extension indicated by the recently completed underground drilling and will also seek to intersect the projected depth extensions of certain historically worked lodes, namely Grandfathers Lode and the 7-10 Lode.

On the results, George Frangeskides commented, “This provides us with a significant zone for follow-up channel and bulk sampling once we can get much closer access, which we will be able to do as soon as we have dewatered the Main Shaft at Llechfraith.”

He added, “Ultimately, assuming that sampling programme stacks up well, we would then look to sink an extension to the Main Shaft some 60 metres down from No 4 Level, with several new Levels then being driven across from the extended shaft in order to be able to access the lode structure at a number of intervals.”

Shares in Alba Mineral Resources have delivered a four-fold increase for shareholders since the start of August 2020 to open 7% higher this morning at 0.39p following the news.

ALBA price chart

Reasons to FOLLOW ALBA

Alba Mineral Resources is a well-diversified mineral exploration and development company which owns and operates mining projects in Greenland, Wales and Ireland. Its strategy is to identify and secure undervalued assets with a diversified commodity mix where there is potential for discovering further unexploited resources alongside the existing mine site.  

Limerick Base Metals Project 

Historically, only eight drillholes have been completed within Alba’s Project area of the Limerick Base Metals Project, the most recent being the three holes drilled in Q2 of 2019.   

Alba said these low levels of drilling are unusual in the Irish context and, for this reason, the area is considered under-explored. Alba has previously identified a number of attractive targets that have never been drilled before. 

Alba’s current technical team, led by Mark Austin, Alba’s COO and Senior Geologist, will undertake a comprehensive review of the licence area before determining the next phase of planned exploration activities. 

The expenditure conditions attaching to the renewal of PL 3824 require Alba to incur expenditure of €15,732 by 26 May 2021 with a further €50,000 to be spent by 26 May 2022.  

JORC Resource expected at St David’s Clogau Gold Mine 

Despite losing field time to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alba said it is in a position to execute one of the most significant underground work programmes seen for several decades at its Clogau gold mine in Wales, just as the commodity is reaching all-time highs in value.   

Alba said its mining projects remain on ‘a sound footing’, with JORC resources at both Thule Black Sands and Melville Bay, and plans to drill a maiden JORC resource at Amitsoq in 2021.  

Amitsoq

Earlier this week, Alba said an independent testwork programme at the Group’s Amitsoq graphite project in southern Greenland has confirmed ‘very high carbon content.’

Due to the high carbon content, the product would offer ‘a significant advantage, as no purification would be needed to achieve that level,’ the Company explained to investors.

Accordingly, subject to certain follow-up testwork which the Group said is recommended, the testwork successfully indicates the suitability of Amitsoq graphite as feed material for Lithium-Ion Batteries ("LIBs"), the fastest growing market for flake graphite globally. 

‘This finding that the concentrate appears to be suitable for LIBs is significant, as the market for LIBs is the fastest growing market for flake graphite, with massive growth rates forecast for the next decade due to the expected demand for LIBs in electric vehicles,’ Alba outlined.

Transition from Exploration to Production in Greenland and Wales  

Other ‘significant’ progress has also been made in recent years towards Alba’s ultimate goal of achieving commercial production at one or more of its sites, including at the Thule Black Sands in Greenland, the Amitsoq project in Greenland and the Horse Hill well in Surrey. 

In 2020, Alba has announced that surface trenching activities would kick-start over the first of the group’s 10 regional gold targets over the Dolgellau Gold Field.  

The trenching will target the first of 10 separate new gold targets over the Dolgellau Gold Field which have previously been identified by Alba.  

Alba said up to eight trenches have been planned in this first phase, each varying in length from 40-90m for a total of 575m, with each trench being 1m wide and up to 2m deep. 

Once exposed, the quartz veining and other structures from the trenches, those of which are pictured below, will be sampled, and those samples sent to a laboratory for assaying. 

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