Alien Metals (UFO ) continues to report progress following last week's FY21 update, detailing steady growth and a growing list of concessions in Australia and Mexico. Today's announcement adds one more acquisition under the Western Australia column of Alien's portfolio.
Alien Metals, a London-based mineral exploration company, has confirmed the 100% acquisition of the Vivash Gorge iron ore project in Australia from ASX-listed Zenith Minerals. Alien agreed to acquire the asset on 30 May and has now finalised the purchase, involving the transfer of 7.8m shares to Zenith.
Vivash Gorge is located 80km West of the Tom Price Township and 60km South of Alien's Brockman project in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia. It covers an area of approximately 47 km2. See Figure 1 below for Alien's concessions in the region.
Fortescue Mining Group Ltd, one of the world's largest iron ore producers, has defined a high-grade iron ore resource of 28Mt @ 58.8% Fe over the neighbouring Vivash SW Resource, which abuts the eastern central boundary of the Vivash Gorge tenement. Based on geological mapping, proximity, and strike of the Vivash SW Resource, Alien believes that the Vivash SW Resource continues into the Vivash Gorge tenement, providing a "walk up" drill target while several identical geological targets on strike also remain untested.
Programme of Work (POW) for drilling of up to 150 RC holes of a maximum of 200m each has been granted to Zenith already, which will allow Alien immediate access.
With Vivash Gorge, Alien now has three strategically located iron ore projects within the Pilbara region (a combined tenement package of 108 km2) with significant development opportunities, each surrounded by iron ore majors. Alien set up in November 2021 a wholly owned subsidiary "Iron Ore Company of Australia" to manage these assets. One of them, the Hancock Ranges Project, is expected to be highly profitable based on initial drilling.
Bill Brodie Good, CEO & Technical Director, commented: "We are pleased to have completed the acquisition of the Vivash Gorge Iron Ore Project from Zenith Minerals. We thank the team at Zenith for their support in this process and look forward to getting on the ground in the coming quarter. We feel it's a great fit to our iron ore portfolio which adds further potential to the Company's growth in the high grade iron ore sector."
Bill Brodie had previously commented: "With drilling approvals already in place, we see the immediate potential to get on the ground and test the numerous targets that are on strike from Fortescue’s Vivash SW deposit."
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