Latitude hits ASX boards for Finland gold-cobalt foray

The combined entity known as Latitude 66 that has hit the boards at the ASX this morning is a curious case of fateful relationships and high-tech geology.

The joining of respective firms formerly known as DiscovEx Resources and Latitude 66 Cobalt has largely been built on organic connections made through the public company space and a mutual regard for the latter’s promising Kuusamo Schist Belt (KSB) project in Finland – understood to hold Europe’s third-biggest undeveloped cobalt resource in a country harbouring the largest refinery capacity globally for the in-demand metal outside of China.

The coming together – in what is effectively a reverse takeover – steps back to 2021 when boardroom relationships between DiscovEx and Latitude began to form around a capital raise to fund the former’s purchase of its Sylvania gold and base metals asset in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. It created some lasting connections, particularly through several Latitude board members and DiscovEx non-executive chairman Heath Helliwell.

At the centre of that was Helliwell’s business acquaintance with well-known Perth fund manager and Latitude founder, Russell Delroy. It is all part of what Latitude managing director Grant Coyle, who will hold the same position in the new entity, describes simply as “a group of like-minded people”.

And in possibly even more straightforward terms when explaining why DiscovEx was interested in the deal with Latitude, managing director Toby Wellman said he needed little convincing after studying an airborne electromagnetic (EM) survey that identified glowing conductivity at KSB.

“When I reviewed the (Finland) project from a DiscovEx point of view, I saw the resource and thought that was really good value underpinning the project,” Wellman told Bulls N’ Bears. “Then when I brought that image up, it was like, ‘This is just like shooting fish in a barrel, you just go and drill it’.”

The survey threw up several “blips” that represent conductivity sources for the gold and cobalt mineralisation heavily associated with sulphides at all of KSB’s prospective deposits. Each blip drilled to date by Latitude has thrown up intersections of high-grade gold.

Wellman had previously worked in Sweden for three years and that Scandinavian experience was also seen by Coyle as an important “big tick” asset, as Latitude had been searching for the right person to head up the technical team at KSB.

He said Latitude had considered going down the initial public offering (IPO) path, but Wellman’s experience and DiscovEx’s Sylvania copper-gold asset and joint venture (JV) holdings with Carnaby Resources – and that company’s Greater Duchess project in Queensland – made the partnership a more attractive proposition.

Latitude 66 managing director Grant Coyle said: “There are some definite synergies there and when you wrap all those up, we saw the value we could get with DiscovEx and some near-term value that is easier to unlock when you’re a bigger company. The diversification was important, too, because you never want to be a sole-asset exploration company.”

The new entity’s primary asset is its K-North deposits (K1, K2 and K3) featuring a mineral resource of some 650,000 ounces of gold going at an impressive grade of 2.7 grams per tonne and 5800 tonnes of cobalt reading an economic 0.08 per cent.

Coyle says the company’s near-term focus is on expanding the resource to more than 1 million ounces to underpin the project development he believes can be achieved within the next year through exploration of highly-prospective targets along strike and down-dip.

And the KSB project has several more tentacles, with additional exploration discoveries all the way down to K13 at its K-south region, just 15km away. Historic downhole EM and airborne magnetics have proven successful at the project as gold and cobalt discoveries have been associated with various sulphides that light up like a Christmas tree in those types of surveys.

Latitude is expecting assays imminently from drilling at its K9 prospect in the south. It has also completed downhole EM testing at the targets, which is now under review for follow-up drilling.

Resource expansion campaigns at K-North are ongoing and are expected to be wrapped up shortly.

The company seems to have its hands full with its new Finnish KSB project and the multiple drilling programs and a prefeasibility (PFS) study that are all planned for this year. And while its exploration drilling programs also continue to roll out at Sylvania, it will be keeping a close watch on Carnaby’s aggressive campaign at Greater Duchess.

Just this morning, Carnaby unveiled an exploration update that highlights further potential at the operation for the JV. Carnaby managing director Rob Watkins said fresh results from targeted reconnaissance mapping and rock chip and soil sampling highlighted several new and “highly-significant” targets that will form the basis of first-pass geophysical and exploration drilling programs in the second half of this year.

In all, the future looks to be a promising, yet hectic one for the new-look Latitude 66, which now has bait on its hooks ready to be plunged into the Finnish fish barrel.

And with the European Union outlining an ambitious new mission to have 10 per cent of its annual critical minerals needs mined domestically by 2030, the KSB project – and its cobalt that is essential for electric vehicles (EVs) – could well take on a greater importance.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au