Drilling begins at Hamersley Iron Ore Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trading Symbols

AIM: UFO

FWB: I3A1

21 January 2021

 

Alien Metals Ltd

("Alien Metals" or "the Company")

 

Maiden drilling program begins at Hamersley Iron Ore Project

 

Follow the link to view the announcement in full including all figures:

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/3785M_1-2021-1-20.pdf

 

Alien Metals Ltd (LSE AIM:UFO), a minerals exploration and development company, is pleased to advise that, further to the announcement on 14 December 2020, the maiden drilling program on the Company's Hancock Iron Ore project, part of its Hamersley Iron Ore Project, Western Australia, is underway.

 

Highlights:

-      Maiden drilling program to validate recently announced exploration targets in Hancock Iron Ore Project will consist of:

o  Minimum of 3,000m grid-based shallow RC drilling across priority targets

o  Planned new drill line on Sirius Extension prospect

o  At least four target areas to test

-      Assay results from sampling expected late February 2021

-      Follow up drilling to plan on provisional results

 

Bill Brodie Good, CEO & Technical Director of Alien Metals, commented:

 

"We are extremely pleased to get underway with this maiden drilling program which the team has managed to deliver in a very short timeframe. The recent sampling and mapping work completed at each phase has added confidence to the potential of both tenements.  

 

"Alien also has the necessary permissions in place for the Hancock Project and the funding to start proving up the true potential of the historically known prospects (Kalgan and Sirius Extension), as well as some newly identified significant targets which we are about to start drilling.

 

"Three Rivers Drilling of Western Australia are a tried and tested drilling company with an excellent track mounted Reverse Circulation (RC) rig ideal for this initial program.  Our skilled technical team are keen to develop these exciting targets and to continue to develop this project up the knowledge and value curve.

 

"We are waiting on the necessary permissions for similar maiden drilling on the Brockman Project which also holds excellent potential. We are excited about the opportunity to add significant value to the project and developing next stage exploration from the outcome. We look forward to updating the market of progress in due course."   

 

 

Figure 1: Location of the Brockman and Hancock Ranges Iron Ore projects within the prolific iron ore producing region of the Pilbara

 

Background

 

The two projects are within the Hamersley Province of Western Australia, known as one of the premier iron ore producing regions of the world.  The Brockman Project (E47/3953) is located in the west Hamersley Province, 100 kilometres ("km") northwest of the Rio Tinto iron ore mining town of Tom Price, and 90km west of the Tom Price to Dampier mine railway. The Hancock Ranges Project (E47/3954) is located in the east Hamersley Province, 15km north of the BHP iron ore mining town of Newman, and 20km west of the Newman to Port Hedland mine railway.

 

As announced 25 August 2020, five priority prospects were identified with next stage exploration plans proposed. For the Brockman Project, three targets focus on the historic high-grade BHP prospects numbers 15, 19 and 20. Two key targets in the Hancock Ranges Project are the Sirius Extension prospect, that has previously been drilled by Volta Mining (refer announcement dated 20 September 2019 for further information), and the Kalgan Prospect in the north-west of the tenement, that the Company believes has excellent potential.

 

More recent field work also identified a series of roughly east west striking high grade Iron ore ridges newly defined by Alien and highly prospective for additional Iron Ore mineralisation.

 

 

 

Drill Program

 

This maiden drilling program on the Hancock Ranges project is to test four main targets now defined from historic and recent work, namely two high grade east west ridges of outcropping high grade iron ore in the central and north central parts of the tenement recently identified by Alien in field mapping and sampling and the historically defined Kalgan and Sirius Extension prospects.

 

Three Rivers Drilling Ltd of WA will provide a Schramm track mounted T450 Reverse Circulation (RC) drill machine, rated to 350m depth, with 6.0m pullback and an on-board 900cfm/350psi Compressor. They will support the drill rig with an 8x8 Support Truck with water and diesel storage, a 4 x 4 Mine Specification Support vehicle, RC equipment to carry out drilling to a depth of 80 metres, a drilling team for the rig comprising 1 Senior Driller, drilling offsiders along with 1 Drill Fitter assigned to the project as required for seven days per week operations.

 

 

Figure 2: T450 Reverse Circulation (RC) drill machine, Three Rivers Drilling, WA.

 

The drill rig has an industry standard cyclone and sample splitter which means each sample can be correctly and within international standards and procedures. It also complied with the rigorous HSE standards of Australia to maintain the necessary international standards followed by Alien. At this stage Alien plan to sample every meter drilled and once tested on-site with a handheld XRF unit to get an initial indication of iron content along with visual inspection and logging of each sample to then dictate how many samples are submitted to the laboratory for analysis.

 

For QA/QC purposes Alien will use the industry standard of inserting 5% Certified Reference Material (CRM) samples, 5% Certified Blank Samples (Blanks) and 5% duplicate samples at source. The CRMs will be sourced from Geostats Pty Ltd, Perth, WA, a global leader in the manufacture and sale of CRMs and Blanks.

 

The planned holes are spread across four initial areas to enable the company to continue to develop our knowledge of the project as a whole and to further prioritise for next stage drilling.

 

The BIF units within the tenement are found associated with the sedimentary sequences within the Welli Wooli Formation. The BIF units mostly present as prominent ridges which largely follow the WNW grain of the country except where there has been local disruption. A notable example being the central portion of the tenement. Because of the folding these is a repetition of the beds and there appears to be good continuity at least in terms of grade along the strike of some of the individual BIF beds.

 

The BIF's were traced along strike between the mapped traverses using imagery and for convenience they have been given labels A-F.  Two of these ridges represent two of the targets for this maiden drilling. The Kalgan Prospect is located atop the crest of an anticline and has no ridge development due to the flat lying presentation of the beds and is the third drill target. The Sirius Extension Prospect is the fourth drill target for this program.

 

Figure 3: Iron bearing ridges, Brockman Tenement, November 2020

 

 

Figure 4: Proposed Drilling locations, central ridges, Hancock Project, January 2021

 

 

Figure 5: Proposed Drilling locations, Kalgan prospect, Hancock Project, January 2021

 

 

All samples generated will be despatched to Intertek Genalysis at Maddington, WA, and analysed for their Basic Iron Ore Package Analysis with XRF finish, which includes elements Fe, Al, Ca, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P, S and Si.  This is the same as the analysis and laboratory used in all Alien's analysis work on these projects to maintain consistency and comparability between all analyses.

 

Maiden drilling on the Brockman tenement is still in development stage with a follow up field mapping and sampling program planned prior to finalising a drilling program, along with getting the necessary permission to drill within the tenement all which is ongoing.

 

 

Figure 6: Location of BHP historic deposits in relation to E47/3953 Brockman Project 

 

 

The Board of Alien continues to assess a range of mineral projects and opportunities, with particular focus on exploration projects with near term news flow and value creation.  

 

- Ends -

 

For further information please visit the Company's website at www.alienmetals.uk, or contact:

 

Alien Metals Limited Bill Brodie Good, CEO & Technical Director St-James' Corporate Services, Company Secretary Tel: +44 20 7796 8644	Turner Pope Investments (TPI) Limited (Joint Broker) Andy Thacker Tel +44 (0)20 3657 0050
Beaumont Cornish Limited (Nomad) James Biddle/ Roland Cornish www.beaumontcornish.com Tel: +44 (0) 207 628 3396	First Equity Limited (Joint Broker)         Jason Robertson  Tel +44 (0)20 7374 2212
Yellow Jersey PR (Financial PR) Sarah Hollins / Joe Burgess / Matthew McHale [email protected] Tel: +44 (0) 20 3004 9512

 

 

 

Notes to Editors

Alien Metals Ltd is a mining exploration and development company listed on AIM of the London Stock Exchange (LSE: UFO). The Company's focus is on precious and base metal commodities.

 

Alien Metals has embarked upon 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 (Direct Shipping Ore) iron ore projects and the Elizabeth Hill Silver projects both located in the Pilbara region, Western Australia.

 

In addition to progressing and developing 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.

 

Qualified Person

The information in this report which relates to Exploration Targets, Exploration Results and Mineral Resources or Ore Reserves is based on information compiled by Mr Allen Maynard, who is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geosciences ("AIG"), a Corporate Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy ("AusIMM") and independent consultant to the Company. Mr Maynard is the Director and principal geologist of Al Maynard & Associates Pty Ltd and has over 40 continuous years of exploration and mining experience in a variety of mineral deposit styles. Mr Maynard has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the "Australasian Code for reporting of Exploration Results, Exploration Targets, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves" (JORC Code). Mr Maynard consents to inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears.

 

Glossary:

 

XRF - X-ray fluorescence, used for elemental analysis and chemical analysis, particularly in the investigation of metals in the resource industry

 

Reverse Circulation Drilling -  Often referred to as RC drilling, is a method of drilling which uses dual wall drill rods that consist of an outer drill rod with an inner tube. These hollow inner tubes allow the drill cuttings to be transported back to the surface in a continuous, steady flow. Drill results using this method with adequate QA/QC are able to be used in Mineral Resource Calculations.

 

QA/QC - Quality Assurance/Quality Control - This is the combination of quality assurance, the process or set of processes used to measure and assure the quality of a product, and quality control, the process of ensuring products and services meet consumer expectations. In this case an independent verification of the laboratory analysis results.