Five facts to know about King River Resources (ASX:KRR)

Highlights

• King River is engaged in gold exploration at its two wholly owned projects.
• The company’s Speewah Project holds potential for HPA, vanadium, titanium, and iron.
• HPA and vanadium are gaining significant ground in the battery industry, while titanium is considered a super-speciality metal.
• KRR is working in collaboration with research groups to develop flow sheets for efficient and cost-efficient methods for metal extraction.

King River Resources (ASX: KRR) operates highly prospective projects in Australia’s Tier 1 mining jurisdictions. The company boasts tenements in the Tennant Creek region of the Northern Territory, while its Mt Remarkable and Speewah projects are located in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The company is exploring gold potential across its Tennant Creek and Mt Remarkable projects. The Speewah project, covering Australia's largest vanadium-in-magnetite deposit, holds the potential for high purity alumina (HPA), vanadium, titanium, and iron.

While advancing a diversified project portfolio, the company is guided by an experienced team with a wealth of knowledge in the mining, technical, engineering, financial, and business fields.

Let us flick through a few factors aiding the company’s journey in the metals & mining space.

1. Diversified asset portfolio

King River Resources boasts a diversified asset portfolio, focused on gold, HPA, vanadium and titanium. The Australian federal government has included HPA, vanadium and titanium in the critical minerals list.

The Australian government plans to develop the downstream sector of the critical minerals industry. This will help in creating a complete value chain in the domestic market.

2. Exposure to gold

King River operates two gold projects - Mt Remarkable in WA and Tennant Creek in the NT region of Australia. The company holds a 100% interest in both projects. The company has completed a 34-hole RC drilling campaign over the Tennant Creek Project with encouraging gold intercept results.

Drilling operations over the Mt Remarkable Project have also indicated significant gold mineralisation across the tenement area. Both the projects are in the exploration phase.  

3. Strategic focus towards green metals

The Speewah Project has the potential for HPA, vanadium and titanium. HPA is being used as a coating material for separator sheets in lithium-ion batteries. Another vital application of HPA is evolving as a coating material for graphite/silicon in the battery anode. The introduction of silicon coated with HPA has been found to significantly increase the energy capacity and overall performance of batteries.

Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFBs) are already being used in large energy storage units commercially. Vanadium is also used in steel making, aircraft manufacturing and the alloy industry.

Known to be one of the hardest metals, titanium has extensive industrial applications, including in the paint industry.  

4. Efficient extraction method

KRR is working in collaboration with Murdoch University to develop a new process flow sheet to produce high-purity V₂O₅, TiO₂ and iron. The Hydrometallurgy Research Group of the University is conducting metallurgical testwork to increase the extraction percentage of vanadium and titanium from the project.

The new process flowsheet is expected to be more energy-efficient and provides a higher extraction rate with significant cost efficiency.

The research group is focusing its work on the oxidative salt roast process for recovering vanadium and trialling reductive roast approaches to recover other metals.

5. Research collaboration

In October last year, KRR joined hands with the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBI-CRC), which has a portfolio of 17 research & development projects spanning the battery value chain.

The agreement covers the following two projects

• Cathode Precursor and Active Materials Production Pilot Plant
• Development and application of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

KRR shares were trading at AU$0.013 midday on 21 October 2022.