Alba Mineral Resources granted exploration licence in Greenland

Alba Mineral Resources announced on Friday that it has been granted a mineral exploration licence in north-west Greenland, within the region known as Inglefield Land, close to its existing Inglefield mineral exploration licence.

The AIM-traded firm said the additional ground was previously under licence to NunaMinerals, a former licence-holder which previously held a diverse portfolio of exploration licences in Greenland covering some of the most prospective ground in the country, which Alba said incorporated precious, base and critical metals as well as diamonds.

It said the government of Greenland announced in October that it was making much of the former Nuna exploration ground available in a formal application process, which ended on 30 November.

Alba applied for the additional ground, and was successful in its application.

It said extensive exploration had been carried out across Inglefield Land by previous operators in the region as well as the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, and the historical data on Alba's combined Inglefield Land ground included assay results confirming the presence of copper, gold, cobalt, vanadium and nickel.

In conjunction with the licence grant, Alba's technical team had now completed a further compilation and review of the available historical data across Inglefield Land.

“We are very pleased to have added to our exploration ground in Inglefield Land,” said Alba executive chairman George Frangeskides.

“Once further ground became available late last year, we identified the major areas of interest and submitted our application, and are grateful for the continued vote of confidence in our team's work in-country which has been shown by the MLSA and the Government of Greenland in awarding us this licence.”

Frangeskides said the area hosted a “range” of high value commodities, including gold but also encompassing a range of metals that, aside from their long-standing industrial uses, had “key roles” in the electric vehicle battery and renewables sector, namely copper, cobalt, vanadium and nickel.

He noted that the price of cobalt in particular was up over 100% in the past 12 months.

“We have the advantage that we can continue now the extensive work undertaken in Inglefield Land by the previous operators which work has confirmed promising grades for a suite of high value minerals and metals.

“One of the drivers for us to look at the potential within Inglefield Land is that we already have a strong base in north-west Greenland with our Thule Black Sands project.”

As the company would be working extensively up at Thule in the coming field season, Frangeskides said the company would be able to utilise the same team and logistics to undertake a first field exploration campaign at Inglefield Land, which lay approximately 100 km to the north of the town and exploration base of Qaanaaq, with Thule Black Sands being approximately 80 km to the south.

“So while this additional exploration ground does not add significantly to our exploration outlay, it possesses attractive upside potential from further exploration success.

“In the coming months investors can expect to see significant news flow at Alba, not only across our suite of high quality mining assets in Greenland and the UK, but also of course in relation to our substantial interests in the Horse Hill and Brockham oil projects both of which, as previously reported by their respective operators, are hoped to make a major step-change in their development.”