21 September
2020
ALTONA ENERGY
PLC
(“Altona” or “the Company”)
HEADS OF
AGREEMENT
FOR
UGANDAN RARE EARTH
ELEMENT PROJECT
Altona (AQSE: ANR.PL), a mining exploration company with a focus
on Rare Earth Element (“REE”) mining projects in Africa, is pleased to announce it has signed
non-binding Heads of Agreement with Leadway Group Ltd to acquire a
70% legal and beneficial interest in a greenfield mining project in
Uganda, known as the Nankoma Rare
Earth Project (“Nankoma”) (tenement TN03385).
The tenement covers an area of 67.5 km2 and is
located approx. 50 km east of Jinja, which lies 130 km east of
Kampala in Eastern Uganda.
Should a binding agreement be entered into, Altona will be
responsible for 100% of the agreed budgeted costs to complete a
Feasibility Study on the establishment of commercial scale REE
mining and processing operations at the project site. Altona will
also be the manager and operator of the project.
Background and Rationale
As announced in the recent Business Update, the Company is
looking to build a multi-asset portfolio of REE mining projects in
Eastern and Central Africa. While
the East African Rift System has long been known for its endowment
in Carbonatite-hosted REE deposits, some of which have been
estimated to be among the richest in the world, the presence of
Ionic Clay REE deposits has only more recently been shown in the
region, making it an ideal target for Altona’s exploration work.
Further, by acquiring REE assets of differing geological natures,
the Company hopes to spread its risk between low grade / low
operating cost ionic-clay type deposits and the high grade and high
operating costs carbonatite deposits.
The rationale for the acquisition of the Nankoma Rare Earth
Project is based, at this time, on the close proximity of the
tenement to Australian Stock Exchange (“ASX”) listed Ionic Rare
Earth Limited’s (“IonicRE”) REE exploration project, which lies
immediately to the north-west of the Nankoma tenement and has a
similar geology and geomorphology.
IonicRE reported a Mineral Resource Estimate of 78.6 Mt @ 840
ppm Total Rare Earth Oxide (“TREO”) on its Makuutu Central Zone
(tenement RL1693) in June 2020, which
it is currently extending to the east, towards Nankoma. Crucially,
IonicRE reported high levels of Critical Rare Earth Oxides
(“CREO”), at 310 ppm, which include the elements, Neodymium and
Praseodymium, two of the REEs which Altona is focused on
extracting, due to their demand in many green industries.
Considering that IonicRE’s resource is of the ionic-clay
adsorption type deposit, the TREO and CREO figures are highly
encouraging, due to the ease of recovery and low-cost nature of
this type of deposit. This has provided to the Board of Altona with
sufficient confidence to investigate the Nankoma tenement
Following a successful fund raise by the Company, and then upon
completion of the due diligence and signature of the final
agreement, Altona will embark on drilling target generation using
Uganda’s airborne geophysical survey datasets (survey flown in
2006) as well as Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and
multi-spectral satellite imagery, and ground proofing (including
preliminary assaying and leach tests). Scout drilling of the
targets will involve about 20 PQ3/HQ3 diamond drilling holes as
well as first pass metallurgical testing.
Deal Terms
The Company, should the final agreement be signed, will pay a
total of £725,000 in Altona Ordinary Shares across five tranches,
determined by the completion of various milestones, with the
expectation that the final tranche of £175,000, will be paid within
three years, on the completion of a pre-feasibility study. Shares
will be issued at a 10-day average market price at the date of the
milestone completion. The first share payment of £25,000, due
21 September 2020, will be paid at
the current suspended price of 9.5
pence and provides Altona with a period of exclusivity until
30 November 2020, to complete its
legal and technical due diligence on Leadway Group Ltd.
The Companies shares will remain suspended on AQSE until it has
successfully raised funds. As mentioned previously, Altona will be
seeking to raise money via Minexia’s www.nrprivatemarket.com
shortly and a separate announcement will be made to this effect.
The Company views the platform’s approach to mining and exploration
funding both innovative and disruptive. The Minexia team are
looking forward to having Altona as their first REE client.
Cedric Simonet, Consultant
Geologist, Altona, commented, “This new deal with Leadway Group
for the potential acquisition of the Nankoma project marks the
entry of Altona in a nascent Ionic Clay REE play in a stable
African jurisdiction with an exciting geology. The envisaged
geological model is straight forward and well understood from work
done by Ionic RE in the neighboring licences, supporting a short
exploration and development timeline.”
Christian Taylor-Wilkinson,
Interim CEO of Altona, commented, “We are developing a strategy
which we believe will reduce the risk for investors and
shareholders, by spreading our interests across different
jurisdictions and geological models, whilst keeping the focus on
those Rare Earth Elements which are most in demand around the
world. It is well documented that industries are looking for
alternative sources of REEs outside of China, which has been dominant for the past 20
years. Africa is becoming one such
suitable alternative, due to its endowment in REEs, the advanced
development stage of its mining sector and commercial
infrastructure.”
-ends-
For further information, please visit www.altonaenergy.com or
contact:
Altona Energy
plc
Christian Taylor-Wilkinson, Interim CEO
Philip Sutherland, Non-Executive Director |
+44 (0) 7795 168 157
+61 (0)402 440 339 |
Alfred Henry
Corporate Finance Ltd (Aquis Corporate Adviser)
Jon Isaacs / Nick Michaels |
+44 (0) 20 3772 0021 |
|
|
Leander (Financial
PR)
|
+44 (0) 7795 168
157 |
Company Information
Altona is a mining exploration company focused on the
evaluation, development and extraction of Rare Earth Element (REE)
metals.
The Company was admitted to trading on AIM on 10 March 2005 and was subsequently admitted to
Aquis Stock Exchange (previously NEX) on 1 February 2019. A
copy of its Admission documents dated 4
March 2005 can be accessed on its website,
www.altonaenergy.com. This website is where items can be
inspected under Rule 75 of the Aquis Rules for Issuers, from
1 February 2019.
Information on Minexia and NR Private
Market
Minexia is a fin-tech business which has been in development for
c.4years and launched its investment platform, NR Private Market in
Q1 2019, which allows private investors ('Sophisticated' or 'High
Net Worth') to access a pipeline of high quality, pre-screened,
advanced exploration and or early stage development mining
projects. The platform has successfully closed six deals (total
value c. £10M) to date and has secured a dozen platform partners
and 6,000+ active platform users.