Alien Metals upbeat on data surrounding Elizabeth Hill project

Alien Metals announced on Tuesday that its technical team had reviewed provisional data supplied by Karratha Metals Group (KMG) on the former producing Elizabeth Hill Silver Project, after it reached agreement on 4 December to buy a 100% interest in the project from KMG.

The AIM-traded firm said the completion of the acquisition remained conditional on, among other things, satisfactory mutual due diligence on the project and Alien by the parties, required regulatory approvals and approval by KMG’s shareholders for the distribution.

It noted Elizabeth Hill’s initial 1999 JORC-compliant resource of 4.05 million ounces of silver at greater than 200 grams of silver per tonne, with 46,800 tonnes grading at 2,700 grams of silver per tonne.

A total of 1,170,000 ounces of silver had been mined between 1998 and 2000, at an average grade of 2,195 grams of silver per tonne.

Alien Metals described the project as containing a “unique mineralisation system”, which had produced Australia’s largest silver nugget weighing 180 kilograms, and a number of other “very large specimens” of native silver.

It said the silver resource was also present in near-surface material, via standard open pit mining method above the existing underground workings.

Independent reports suggested the potential for further high-grade material within the existing mine, with a depth extension of high grade mineralisation below 100 metres untested.

Several surface robust geophysical anomalies were also untested within the mining licence, the board said.

“Alien [will] re-evaluate the 2011 mining scoping study on the project,” the board said in its statement.

“Detailed data compilation [is] underway, and a site visit, ahead of outlining the first stage of exploration.”

At 0802 GMT, shares in Alien Metals were up 8.11% at 0.2p.