How Has KRR Progressed Over The June Quarter?

The exploration company, King River Resources Limited (ASX: KRR) is making solid progress in the development of both of its 100% owned projects, i.e. Speewah Specialty Metals (SSM) Project and Mt Remarkable Gold Project.

Location of the Speewah and Mt Remarkable projects (Source: Company Reports)

Update on SSM Project:

Through its CapEx-OpEx Scoping Study, the company has already established a view that the tank leaching of a concentrate is the preferred process route to produce vanadium pentoxide, iron oxide as well as titanium dioxide products. The company is currently undertaking metallurgical testwork and studies to deliver a Prefeasibility Study (PFS) towards the end of 2019.

During 2019 June quarter, King River Resources Limited was focused on precipitating products from the sulphuric acid leach solutions and in the process, tried out various methods, including chemical precipitation, hydrolysis, solvent extraction and ion exchange.

In the first HPA (high purity alumina) precipitation test, high purity alumina assaying 99.99% Al₂O₃ (4N HPA) was produced from sulphuric acid leach solutions, which is an encouraging piece of news for the company and its shareholders.

HPA Result (Source: Company Reports)

Due to the increasing demand for HPA in several markets, this initial HPA precipitation test result means that the company has the potential to add a new material revenue stream to the Speewah Specialty Metals Project. Currently, HPA is increasingly used in the manufacturing of synthetic sapphire glass and HPA coated separators. In addition, the unique physical and chemical properties of HPA is making it suitable for other high technology industries.

The company is planning to undertake more HPA precipitation testwork in order to further improve precipitation efficiency and reduce the purification recrystallisation steps.

Besides excellent HPA precipitation test result, the company has also reported encouraging initial precipitation efficiencies of titanium dioxide and iron oxide products. Through iron reduction chemical precipitation method, high purity iron oxide (Fe₂O₃) product was produced, which assayed 67.13% Fe, with 1.91% Mg, 0.096% Mn, 0.21% Al, 0.09% Si, 0.081% Ti, 0.031% S, 0.02% V, 0.028% Na, 0.01% Ca and 0.008% K.

(Source: Company Reports)

To develop the best iron oxide process route, the company is looking through further iron reduction and purification methods. Through hydrolysis from the iron-depleted leach solutions at high precipitation efficiencies, intermediate titanium dioxide (TiO₂) products have already been produced.

During the June quarter, an amended resource estimate was completed. The resource estimate was amended in such a way that TiO₂ was tabulated in addition to Ti.

The amended Mineral Resource table can be viewed below.

(Source: Company Reports)

As per the table, the Speewah deposits include a combined Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 4,712 million tonnes at 0.3% V₂O₅ (Vanadium oxide), 3.3% TiO₂ (Titanium oxide) and 14.7% Fe (reported at a 0.23% vanadium oxide cut-off grade from the Central, Buckman and Red Hill deposits).

Recent Progress: The company has commenced a 31 hole RC drill programme on an existing Mining Lease (M80/267), which is near to the existing vanadium resources. Besides that, the company is also looking at ways to reduce the size of the sulphuric acid plant. Como Engineers has been seeking indicative pricing on other sulphuric acid plants for the SSM Project and along with that, the company is optimising the acid leach and precipitation routes to decrease acid consumption.

Update on Mt Remarkable Gold Project:

During the June quarter, the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Whitewater Minerals Pty Ltd was granted an additional Exploration Licence number E80/5133, significantly adding to the value and the area of the project. In the June quarter, the company recommenced exploration at Mt Remarkable by conducting reconnaissance mapping and sampling to identify further mineralised vein sets/structures.

Earlier, the 2018 Trudi Main zone grid drilling campaign had identified new areas with high-grade gold mineralisation, demonstrating the potential for further discovery along the ~1 kilometre strike corridor at Trudi vein.

In the next phase of drilling, the company will test the extensions to the existing high-grade zones, Trudi East Extension, Trudi Main Deeper, New Veins and targets generated by 2019 reconnaissance.

Outside of the Trudi Vein, the company has identified various surface gold anomalies across the Mt Remarkable Project.

Tennant Creek Copper-Gold Project Update: The company’s subsidiary, Treasure Creek Pty Ltd, currently holds 12 granted Exploration Licences in the Tennant Creek copper-gold belt of the Northern Territory. During the June quarter, the company completed a detailed review of the geological datasets and discovered various copper-gold targets at the project. During the September quarter, subject to approvals, the company is planning to conduct drilling on two priority tenements (EL31617 and EL31619).

Cash Flow Update: During the June quarter, the company spent $547,000 on exploration and evaluation activities. The net cash used for operating activities during the June quarter was $708,000. At the end of June quarter, the company had $2,967,000 of cash and cash equivalents.

In the September quarter, the company intends to spend $864K on the exploration and evaluation activities, which include $300k on Exploration and Drilling program, $350k on Scoping/Prefeasibility work and $214k on Tenement and other expenses. In the September quarter, the company expects to have a total cash outflow of around $962k.

On the stock performance front, for the last three months, the company’s stock has provided a return of 21.74% as on 19th July 2019. At market close on 22nd July 2019, KTA’s stock was trading at a price of $0.028, with a market capitalisation of circa $34.68 million.

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