Everest Metals is looking to expand its battery and precious metals portfolio after lodging an application for two prospective tenement packages near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
The total application area covers the Georgina and Amadeus projects that include 15 exploration licences covering an area around 10,200 square kilometres.
The Georgina tenements sit around 220km north-east of Alice Springs on the Georgina Basin whilst Amadeus is about 150km west of Alice Springs and just north of the Amadeus Basin.
Everest says the region is characterised by a large variety of mineral deposits including lode gold, volcanic-hosted massive sulphides, iron oxide copper gold and lithium-tantalum hosted pegmatites in addition to rare earths, uranium and phosphate mineralisation.
Arafura Rare Earths’ revered Nolans project is neatly wedged directly between the Georgina and Amadeus projects and boasts a resource estimate of 56 million tonnes at an average 2.6 per cent rare earth oxides and 11 per cent phosphate.
Arafura has built an impressive billion-dollar market cap on the back of Nolans.
Everest Metals Corporation Chief Executive Officer, Mark Caruso said: “This is an exciting, raw exploration opportunity for EMC, appropriately fitting into the company’s strategy of battery minerals and precious metal project development.”
According to the Northern Territory Geological Survey, the area around the Georgina tenements hosts a number of copper-gold occurrences in addition to lithium pegmatites and rare earths. Everest says the Amadeus Basin is mostly known for its significant hydrocarbon resource with a discovery history back to the early 1960s and production of oil and gas from the mid-1980s. The area is also prospective for sediment-hosted copper lead and zinc.
Everest has made some big moves in 2023 including announcing its intent to exercise an exclusive farm-in deal to earn a 51 per cent stake in the Mt Edon lithium, caesium and tantalum project in WA’s Mid West region. The deal follows a recent due diligence scout program that yielded RC drill results of up to 1220 parts per million lithium, 3670ppm rubidium and 354ppm caesium.
Just last week the company entered into an exclusive, legally binding farm-in and joint venture term sheet with private firm Entelechy Resources to pick up the Revere gold project north-east of Meekatharra in WA. As part of the deal, Everest will initially pay $10,000 in cash and issue 3,000,000 fully paid ordinary shares to Entelechy in exchange for a 51 per cent interest.
Whilst the applications for the two new Northern Territory projects are yet to be granted, Everest already has plans for early reconnaissance to identify exploration targets.
Everest is helmed by Mark Caruso who is no slouch when it comes to actually turning dirt rather than just drilling it. He has been in the earthmoving business privately for many years and more recently mined mineral sands in Africa amongst a string of other mining related activities over the years.
Caruso is not the kind of exploration company CEO that wants to drill things just for fun and wages – if there is something lurking out there, he will likely get a shovel on it – and quickly.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
