In a potentially transformative move, Impact Minerals has formed a strategic “Broken Hill Alliance” with fellow ASX-listed companies, Castillo Copper and private group, Squadron Resources, to amalgamate what will be the largest landholding that surrounds the world-class Broken Hill zinc-lead-silver mine in New South Wales.
The merged exploration and development land holdings will be prospective for a smorgasbord of metals and rare earths, including platinum and rhodium, two commodities that are going gangbusters right now, recently hitting record highs. Importantly, Impact will retain the rights to explore for all platinum group metals, nickel, copper and other precious metals across its tenements.
A non-binding Memorandum of Understanding will give the alliance parties six months to on-board a fourth strategic partner, the marketing of which will be lead by Castillo.
If the alliance finds a new partner, a “special purpose vehicle” will be formed to acquire all relevant tenements and metal rights. Each partner will receive equal shareholdings in the new vehicle.
Squadron Resources is Impact’s major shareholder, with about 14% of the company's equity. Squadron is backed by mining magnate Twiggy Forrest.
The world class Broken Hill zinc-lead-silver deposit has produced more than 200 million tonnes of ore over 120 years since 1885 and Impact has a suite of its own ground holdings that are prospective for PGMs, nickel and copper.
Impact Managing Director Dr Mike Jones said: “With palladium and rhodium yet again reaching record prices late last week and now being well funded following our recent successful capital raising, we are gearing up to return to exploration at our unique Broken Hill project, where our previous drilling there has delivered exceptional grades of all six platinum group metals (palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and iridium) not to mention gold, nickel and copper as well”
Impact topped up its cash balance to the tune of over $2m recently and plans on funnelling some of those dollars into three key prospects at its Broken Hill project, namely Red Hill, Platinum Springs and Little Broken Hill.
At Red Hill, the company’s latest rock chip samples showed results ranging between 1g/t PGM and 36g/t PGM and from 0.2% copper to 6.1% copper, clearly confirmed the presence of impressive grades.
Previous drilling at Red hill showed some notable results including 1.2 metres grading 254 grams per tonne (9.5 ounces) palladium, 10.4g/t platinum, 10.9g/t gold, 7.4% nickel, 1.8% copper, 19g/t silver, 0.5% cobalt, 4.6g/t rhodium, 7.2g/t iridium, 5.6g/t osmium and 3.1g/t ruthenium.
Another jackpot intercept at Red Hill went 3.5m grading 5g/t platinum, 6g/t gold, 144g/t palladium, 2.9% nickel, 2.3% copper and 14.5 g/t silver.
Castillo has some exciting looking ground too that has largely sat dormant over the last 20 years.
The company said that historical drilling at its Dora East prospect hit significant mineralisation including 5.1m at 10% zinc, 0.8% lead and 40.4g/t silver from 148.m, including 1m at 26.8% zinc, 2.8% lead and 133g/t silver from 148.9m.Impact has certainly been making its presence felt in the last couple of months and its latest alliance deal with Castillo and Squadron will look like a smart move if it can find a partner with deep enough pockets to truly unlock this remarkably located swathe of land.
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