King River Resources’ Forward Plans for Speewah Project on the Back of Recent Developments

Summary

• KRR witnessed many noteworthy developments, including the completion of several aspects of the Pre-feasibility study (PFS) on Speewah Specialty Metals Project concerning the HPA production.
• KRR is currently compiling the Speewah PFS, with outcomes awaited from few ongoing hydrometallurgical testwork and studies.
• Vanadium (V₂O₅), Titanium (TiO₂) and Iron (Fe oxide) to be produced as potential co-products at a later stage, but not included as part of the PFS.
• Backed by unique physical and chemical properties of HPA, its demand is expected to surge as a precursor material for synthetic sapphire glass and HPA coated separators, as well as in other growing high technology industries.

Radically implementing the success recipe to ride out the storm, King River Resources Limited (ASX:KRR) appears to make significant advancements concerning its exploration activities. The Company piggybacked the phenomenal success and enriched mineral exploration results at its different projects to carve out way towards fostering leadership in the mineral exploration space.

The achievement of 99.99% High Purity Alumina (HPA) production at its 100% owned and East Kimberley (WA)-based Speewah Specialty Metals (SSM) Project marked a noteworthy development for the Company, opening immense potential to realise burgeoning opportunities for HPA in the market.

Bolstered by strategic decisions and well-planned strategies, KRR also witnessed significant activities and efforts at its Mt Remarkable Gold Project and Treasure Creek Gold-Copper Project. Meanwhile, KRR board with high calibre and extensive experience in the mineral exploration continues to provide strategic directions to realise the key milestones.

The notable accomplishments appear to boost King River Resources’ status, which is progressing well towards finalising the ongoing Pre-feasibility Study (PFS) at Speewah.

With this backdrop, let us deep dive to explore the recent developments catalysing towards the achievement of forward plans.

The Building Blocks: PFS Developments

A market study conducted by CRU International and commissioned by King River Resources has indicated over-the-counter transactions of 4N HPA (99.99% Al₂O₃) at ~US$24,000/tonne. Expected improvement in the demand for 4N HPA in upcoming period, primarily driven by growth of two technology markets- synthetic sapphire glass and HPA coated separators open vast avenues for its SSM project ventures.

King River Resources received a substantial boost to its exploration efforts, as the Company achieved notable aspects of its PFS on Speewah Project, which is currently being compiled.

4N HPA Production

King River Resources, by the aid of a new process developed by TSW Analytical Pty Ltd (the metallurgical consultants), has accomplished the production of >4N (99.99% Al₂O₃)

In 2019, the Company made a breakthrough by extracting aluminium (Al) directly from the V, Ti, Fe, Al and Mg rich sulphuric acid leach solution as the first precipitation product, with the purification of the intermediate Al rich product producing 99.98% Al₂O₃ HPA. Repetition of the Al precipitation process on several leach solutions developing better understandings has resulted in Al precipitation efficiencies up to 95% and pointed the way for reducing the amount of Al precipitation process reagent.

For reducing contaminants to a very low level, a two-stage purification process was applied to the Al-rich precipitate derived from the leachate, to provide a suitable precursor product for producing 4N HPA.

The purified precursor product was subjected to calcination at a temperature of 1100°C for converting to alumina (Al₂O₃) followed by washing for impurity removal, with the final high purity alumina assaying >99.99% Al₂O₃.

Completion of Test and Studies

KRR has repeated the product test of 4N HPA on a larger sample for reiterating the >99.99% results while also delivering a further product for verification analyses. An independent umpire assay of its >99.99% Al₂O₃ result was also conducted.

The Company has completed HPA precursor calcination at 1200°C aiding in reducing transfer losses and aluminium lost earlier during final wash, which would catalyse the high purity alumina product conversion to alpha alumina.

KRR also surpassed the target recovery of 80% set for the stage 2 purification precipitation, by achieving a precipitation recovery of 81.5%. Moreover, few sources of contamination in the reagents utilised as well as from some equipment have been identified.

Besides marketing and environmental reports, CSA Global has accomplished the mining study.

Perspective Plans

A Security Purchase Plan was recently announced by the Company for existing shareholders, wherein each can purchase additional shares worth up to $30,000 in KRR. Funds raised are planned to cover ongoing development and exploration of the projects, in addition to general working capital.

KRR is currently compiling PFS at Speewah, with initial plan to scale the project to produce HPA, and at a later stage, the Company could potentially produce Vanadium (V₂O₅), Titanium (TiO₂) and Iron (Fe oxide) as co-products but these would not be incorporated as part of the study. The move has the potential for CAPEX reduction and return maximisation.

KRR is eyeing the completion of following hydrometallurgical testwork and studies to finalise the PFS.

On 3 July 2020 (AEST 01:05 PM), the KRR stock was inching upward by 6.061% to trade at $0.035. The stock noted a price return of 57.14% in the last six months.