Power Metal Resources makes solid progress in December quarter

Power Metal Resources updated the market on its progress in the December quarter on Wednesday, reporting the completion of a 1,092 metre reverse circulation (RC) drill programme at the Tati Project in Botswana.

The AIM-traded firm said the programme was designed to follow up on phase one and two results, which highlighted kilometre-scale gold, arsenic and nickel geochemical anomalies coincident with various geological structures highlighted by ground geophysical surveys.

Bonanza grade silver was achieved in 10 out of 19 holes completed during the the phase one Silver Peak Project drill programme in Canada, meanwhile, with follow-up overlimit assays confirming high-grade copper, antimony and lead results increasing the average silver equivalent grade by 18.8%.

Rock sampling and prospecting programmes were also conducted at the company's Tait Hill, Thibaut Lake and Clearwater uranium properties surrounding the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, Canada, which returned high-grade assay results up to 38,600 parts per million, or 3.86%, uranium.

During the quarter, Power Metal secured an option agreement for Kavango Resources to acquire current project partner Kalahari Key Mineral Exploration, through which exploration for nickel, copper and platinum group elements (PGE) at the Molopo Farms Complex Project would see a “significant” step forward.

Having Kavango as the operational partner should streamline the ongoing project progression, the board explained, which was “key” following the discovery of nickel sulphides during the inaugural 2021 drill programme.

Looking at its spin-out vehicles, Power Metal said that at New Ballarat Gold Corporation (NBGC), the grant of licence applications in the Australian state of Victoria further increased the licence footprint to more than 1,500 square kilometres.

NBGC's inaugural diamond drilling programme had started targeting gold mineralisation across a number of exploration targets, the company reported.

At Golden Metal Resources, the acquisition of the Pilot Mountain Project was made, which hosts a “substantial” JORC-compliant mineral resource of tungsten with significant silver, copper and zinc credits in Nevada.

Golden Metal was seeking a listing in London, and was now moving through the process with a full management board, a suite of listing advisers, and recently completing a £0.75m pre-IPO financing.

At First Development Resources Australia, Power Metal said further commercial and technical developments were made within the subsidiary, with preliminary exploration work delineating a number of “exciting” magnetic bullseye gold-copper targets at the Wallal Project in the prolific Paterson Province.

Further acquisition of the Selta Project into FDR Australia, meanwhile, was targeting uranium and rare-earth elements in Australia’s Northern Territory.

On the corporate front, Power Metal conducted a financing in November, raising £1.05m in a placing conducted at the then mid-market price of 1.75p.

It said its operational working capital, comprising cash and listed investments as at 31 December, totalled £2.91m, and unaudited total assets on 30 November of £10.1m, before the valuation uplift in its spin-out vehicles to the pre-IPO valuation.

New team members recruited in the quarter included a chief executive officer for the planned UK listing company First Development Resources, as well as commercial management, accounting and business administration staff at Power Metal.

Additional recruitment was underway to support the growth of the company and its various spinouts, the board said.

“We have chosen a non-conformist path for Power Metal in order to build a company, and investment proposition, quite unlike any other within the London junior resource space,” said chief executive officer Paul Johnson.

“We have opted for scale and diversity, assembling a large portfolio, widely spread across multiple jurisdictions and commodities, with a main focus on district scale opportunities.

“Our mission, after the first phase of portfolio building, was to create value through proactive exploration and corporate activity.”

Johnson said the company was at an “important point” in its life-cycle, coincidentally while global demand for metals was at “unprecedented” levels for investment security, new infrastructure builds and to power the ongoing green technological revolution.

“Despite the world's aspirations, the practical reality is that in recent years we have seen metal supply attrition with a lack of large-scale metal discoveries combined with subdued investment in the exploration and project development space.

“With such skewed supply/demand fundamentals, sectors can come alive, and we believe 2022 will be an exciting year for the junior mining resource space.”

At 1234 GMT, shares in Power Metal Resources were up 0.47% at 1.61p.