Alba shares surge on Thule Black Sands update

Alba Mineral Resources updated the market on work activities at its wholly-owned Thule Black Sands project in northern Greenland on Thursday, reporting that mineral sands specialist IHC Robbins had been appointed to carry out a “comprehensive” metallurgical process development and test work programme on a bulk sample.

The AIM-traded firm said the programme was designed to confirm the ilmenite products to be produced from Thule ilmenite.

It said it would provide product samples to enable potential customers and offtake partners to carry out their own confirmatory analyses.

“We are delighted to be partnering again with leading mineral sands experts IHC Robbins on this important process development programme for our high-grade TBS ilmenite deposit in Greenland,” said executive chairman George Frangeskides.

“This programme will enable us both to confirm the design of the processing facilities for TBS ilmenite and to provide us with the end product that we can send directly to key potential customers and offtake partners for their own confirmatory analyses.”

Frangeskides said the programme was a “key step” in the process of confirming Thule Black Sands as a stand-alone development project, and securing project-level capital to fast-track the project through the development phase.

“As previously announced, we also plan to substantially increase resource tonnes next year by drilling at depth, remembering that the existing, already-significant 19 million tonne resource is only modelled to the depth of the permafrost horizon, typically one to two metres from surface.”

At 1530 BST, shares in Alba Mineral Resources were up 14.18% at 0.43p.