Global Energy Metals (TSXV:GEMC | OTCQB:GBLEF | FRA:5GE1) has completed executing the final agreements to take a 100pc interest in the Millennium Cobalt project in Mt. Isa, establishing it as a leading battery metal player in the world-renowned region of Queensland, Australia.
Mitchell Smith, president and chief executive of Global Energy, said: ‘This combination of Millennium and the discovery-stage Mt. Isa projects creates one of the largest and most exciting exploration cobalt packages in Australia. With this acquisition, we continue to consolidate multi-million tonne cobalt assets and maximise cobalt leverage as investment exposure to the growing battery and EV markets for our shareholders.’
Millennium is a multi-zone, near-surface cobalt-copper sulphide system with several kilometres of potential strike length, as defined by previous drilling, prospecting and geophysics. It is located near established mining, transport, and processing infrastructure and has easy access to a very skilled workforce.
The growth-stage site contains a defined zone of cobalt-copper mineralisation where a 2016 JORC Resource estimate
identified 3.1MMts of inferred resources containing 0.14pc cobalt and 0.34pc copper with gold credits. However, Global Energy is looking at ways to increase the size of its deposit, with results from a first phase exploration campaign at two zones called Millennium North and Millennium South exceeding grade and thickness expectations. The firm will now carry out a second phase of drilling to examine both areas further.
As well as taking Millennium over from previous owner Hammer Metals, the Canadian battery metals player has acquired two further discovery sites called Mt. Dorothy and Cobalt Ridge, collectively known as the ‘Mt. Isa projects’. The areas, which expand Global Energy’s Australian land position by nearly twenty times, have yet to be exploited. However, exploration to date has returned high-grade cobalt intercepts at both, allowing Global Energy to line up numerous targets for further investigation and test work to define a resource.
Global Energy’s first involvement in Millennium came last year when it agreed to acquire 75pc of the project
from Hammer in exchange for funding $2.5m worth of work commitments. Following a successful first round of work, the business decided to accelerate its involvement in the project in June by entering into an agreement for the exclusive right to purchase a 100pc interest. Global Energy will issue 19.9pc of its share capital to pay for this additional stake and Hammer’s CEO Alexander Hewlett will join its board to provide operational and technical support.
The completion of the Millennium acquisition comes just days after Global Energy announced several encouraging intersections from the latest round of drilling at its 70pc-owned Werner Lake project in Ontario, Canada. Five new metallurgical drill holes have been completed by Australian miner Marquee Resources as part of its $2.5m commitment to advance Werner Lake and earn-in to 70pc of the project.
Three of the five holes intersected cobalt while another intersected two zones of copper mineralisation downhole from sulphide cobalt zones. One hole drilled in the West Mine Zone encountered an interval of 7.33m at 0.827pc cobalt, indicating a thickening of an existing sulphide zone. The area will be explored further in the next phase of drilling.
Werner Lake operated as a high-grade source of cobalt in the 1940s and was taken back to mine decision in the late 1990s. It represents a legacy asset for Global Energy, which teamed up with Marquee to advance the project so it could increase its focus on its projects in Australia and grow its portfolio of well established cobalt assets in safe mining jurisdictions globally..
Author: Daniel Flynn
Disclosure: The Author does not own shares in the company mentioned above
