Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Well said Mike.
I think they’re being realistic and taking another look. I didn’t expect every drill hole to give exceptional grades but there’s lithium there at Ewoyaa West they’re just drilling differently now. There’s so much more to come from the different licences and Kaampakrom is the bonus.
It does open up questions and I’m sure we’ll all have lots of questions for Vince, Len and the team at any future shareholder event. I find myself wanting to know more on the detail and forward plan but we’ll just have to wait.
How much of the resource will be confirmed in the JORC and how much will be attributed to further exploration targets as other companies do.
Vince said they were putting their best foot forward and that’s what it looks like they’re doing to me.
High Mike, I’m trying to get my head around it. The main targets were Ewoyaa and Abonko but they kept on finding more anomalies and areas to test like
Ewoyaa Middlings and Ewoyaa West were identified and a drilling program prioritised. The Geodrill drilling deal gave over 4000m of drilling.
It looks like they stopped drilling at Ewoyaa West because the grades they got were not commercially viable ( 0.6% is the lowest grade being commercially mined that I’m aware of and Len did say last year that it’s possible in certain circumstances but they were looking for a much higher grade average) and to be exact about where to drill.
Redirecting 500m of drilling back to Ewoyaa and Abonko is a smart move imo.
‘ Although no longer intervals were reported at Ewoyaa West, the presence of anomalous lithium results in the deepest intervals drilled is encouraging as they are located close to the base of oxidation and within a consistent, thick pegmatite sill that dips towards the Ewoyaa Main deposit. Additional drilling to test further down-dip has been recommended at the Ewoyaa West target; especially as the pegmatite is trending towards the Ewoyaa Main spodumene deposit’.
I think they’re having another look at the anomalies to pin point exactly where those lithium anomalies are and the ‘down dip’ drilling will locate where exactly the pegmatite is. Then it will be about getting the grades but they’re saying it moves back to Ewoyaa.
A very positive RNS imo and one that shows next steps clearly but doesn’t hide the reality that sometimes strategic decisions need to be taken to evaluate progress.
I think this is really sensible and shows how careful they are with cash. It’s would be very easy to drill in the wrong place. I think Len & the team are doing the technicals extremely well.
Another discovery at Kaampakrom.
The JORC will be interesting to see how big it is but the inferred will be big imo because it looks like an open and expanding resource.
Well that’s a real beauty.
1m @ 4.47% at hole GRC0164. A new discovery at Kaampakrom to the north east of Ewoyaa.
More quality technicals from IRR. A good read
Even Toro*
I’m still here and in regular contact with Farquar, Toro and quite a few other long term holders. I actually met up with a few in London at 121 on Wed & Thurs this week.
I’m my opinion the fundamentals and technical work around the geology, metallurgical testing & drilling are still very very robust.
The contrat between what’s happening on the ground today in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire & Chad (but we still need a more detailed update) and the story three years ago as we looked at Gabon and May Queen at Monogoriliby is really remarkable but the SP is now back to where it was at that point.
And there lies the disconnect. We’ve seen the broker reports, poured over all the geology and researched the wider picture around EV, geopolitical issues globally and scrutinised all the RNS, the vision and strategic changes.
On reflection I think the BoD made some really good calls but primarily in CDI with Zaranou and Ghana with Cape Coast. (The back story on the lithium discovery is really good).
The SP is very frustrating, I agree and surprising but as long as I see the disconnect I’ll continue to add.
This is not an AIM P&D but a wait for those fundamentals to come through imo.
The fact that Vincent Mascolo has considerable amounts of his own money invested continues to convince me of his determination to succeed.
Len Kolff is doing a very thorough job of proving up the assets.
Views about how juniors progress are changing and more and more companies are looking to advance projects through to production and get the desirable revenue stream going so funds can be ploughed back into other projects.
The Lithium is one or two projects (mines) dig it and ship it to Takoradi. The quality is there but who wants it. Given the scale and quality with excellent logistics I can see a number of auto companies going direct to source and negotiating a deal, maybe even one that’s going assemble cars in Ghana and likes Wolfsburg FC.
Having said that maybe a large corporate major very close to home and our SA connection in JoBerg will snap up everything.
Lithium is the place to be still and will be increasingly so over next 16 months. Lots of additional info on battery cathodes and lithium-ion over the next ten years but I’ll keep that to myself.
Gold is seen as an increasing safe haven. Heard that lots this week. How much did Sumitomo pay for the Canadian gold company two years ago? Well look what’s happened to gold since then as the world goes crazy.
I’m sure Farq and Tori will pop up soon with their own take on things.
One other thing. If you get the opportunity to attend the next shareholder meeting then take it. Meet Vince and Len or Victor or whoever attends. Grill them on everything from geology to funding to practical logistics. You’ll feel better and more relaxed but not only that, more confident too about the long term upside that IRR is still on track to create.
Agreed Bozi,
Salford City couldn’t take over Man Utd either.
There’s no need to do anything in Chad imo. Full steam ahead at Zaranou for me with the JORC coming for the Lithium.
Has the gold story peaked globally? NO. There’s even talk of it running to 1700 or higher (not my prediction) given all the geopolitical uncertainty across the globe at present.
Right now there’s a big sell off of Bonds and that money is moving into metals but notably gold as bullion and equities.
Companies like Barrick and Newcrest are looking for a long life cycle of 20/30 yrs. strong assets and good economies of scale. Who can provide income for shareholders?
Remember we acquired Zaranou from under the noses of the majors and at a great price.
Which company in CDI has done 100% over the last two days? Look and compare with IRR. The upside looks good to me.
The fundamentals here remain strong imo. There’s a heavy emphasis on getting the technicals correct and having sustainable rigour & robustness built into the development procedures.
It’s what I like about Vince and Len. Their attention to detail is really strong and things are being done correctly. They also compliment each other and that acts as another positive on the overall leadership.
The drilling, grades, metallurgical testing, logistics, airborne magnetic and geophys will all be heavily scrutinised by any potential off take partner, which is why it’s essential that everything is procedurally correct at this stage as we proceed to a JORC with the Lithium in Ghana and the proving up of Zaranou.
The current share price is below IPO price and look at what’s in the portfolio now. I’m just focused on the Gold and Lithium and believe the markets need to see that focus too.
Imo there is definitely one Lithium project but possibly two in Ghana with Cape Coast. Zaranou is looking like a gold project too in Côte d’Ivoire so I’m looking beyond the oversold SP and will continue to steadily build head of announcements in early 2020.
Dorothe in Chad is also a very viable commercial big pit but I’m waiting on an update given potential geopolitical tension there.
Ghana and CDI are great mining friendly jurisdictions to be in.
For those that haven’t seen it, catch up with Joe Lowry’s interview with INN about Lithium. It explains why analysts across sectors at 121 were saying buy lithium stocks yesterday as well as gold and copper. Gold because it will surpass 1500 and copper because of the EV and energy use.
The Best foot Forward JORC is coming.
If people & the markets can’t recognise the progress that’s being made here then they need to look harder and research more imo. The details can be pieced together. The SP won’t be at these levels too long imo so take advantage when & if you can is my approach.
The company IPO was at 10p and look what was on offer back then and is on offer now.
This time last year a placing was done and taken up by Assore & Sumitomo as well as family and friends of Vince.
A lot of progress has been made on both the lithium and gold front in CDI and Ghana in a year while Chad has been frustratingly slow.
A year on and another placing for £2m taken up this time by DGR and Vince again. It means that the percentage holdings of the cornerstone companies has remained roughly the same.
The funds raised will get us through Q1 & the JORC release on the Lithium in Ghana. Drilling is to begin in Zaranou in Dec.
The question I would ask of a company CEO is why are you not investing in your own research, exploration and drilling. Nobody can accuse Vince of not having skin in the game.
If you get a chance to then talk to him about it. Talk about Zaranou and the artisanal mining and how they pieced it together. That’s now backed up by the magnetic anomalies over the 2.8km of HR artisanal mining.
I hope IronRidge holds another shareholder evening and more people take the opportunity to meet Vince, Len, Victor and whoever else is there. It’s great to discuss the geology, the targets, expectations, logistics, concerns, frustrations & potential upside.
So that’s why I’m here. I’m speculative but confident this will deliver on multiple assets in different jurisdictions but to be honest we and I, only need one.
Zaranou just keeps on getting bigger and better. I’m happy with that RNS.
There’s a great video of drone footage from Zaranou tweeted by Len Kolff too showing the extend of the artisanal mining.
The new 2.8km long hard rock magnetic anomaly at Zaranou looks really promising. (Gold in situ).
‘The presence of hard-rock artisanal workings is significant as it demonstrates the presence of gold and, importantly, that the gold is in-situ as opposed to alluvial workings where gold could have travelled from its source. It also provides an insight into the structural controls on mineralisation and important trends for ongoing exploration work.’
Those next steps are exciting.
Next Steps
‘The Company is undertaking stakeholder consultations ahead of access construction for a planned 6,500m wide spaced air-core traverses and targeted reverse circulation drilling programme across the highest priority targets planned to commence during December 2019.’
I think you have to do what they’ve said in the RNS and refer back to the previous RNS.
Agreed it is very technical when you start to look at the figs. I couldn’t take it all in on my phone so looked at it on the Mac.
I’ve then put all the RNS referenced today into a single tweet for easy access when going through them all.
They’ve gone back over previous trenched and targeted areas but with geophys this time to confirm the full extent of what’s there over the 1km strike length and to different depths.
It’s what they’ve done in other assets with Lithium and Gold.
“Results have confirmed and enhanced our geological understanding of the Main Vein Zone target, with the geophysical interpretation providing greater confidence in target depth continuation and dip direction. The coincident resistivity and chargeability anomalies broadly occur along gold mineralised targets within trenching intervals; providing further confidence in gold targets to date and their overall structural settings“
They’ve been looking for confirmation and if I’m reading it correctly they seem to have found what they were after.
Reaffirming the results they had previously.
Gradient array
• 3km2 block.
• 25m point spacing
• 50m line spacing
• Survey direction east-west
Data processing and results interpretation was completed in-house, in conjunction with Terratec consultants.
Results have defined a high-priority 1km long low resistivity with coincident chargeability anomaly over the Main Vein target zone. The geophysical anomaly is coincident with the Main Vein zone where previous high- grade gold trenching results including 4m @ 14.2g/t Au, 2m @ 34.1g/t Au, 2m @ 31.1g/t Au, 1m @ 63.2 g/t Au, 10m @ 2.98g/t Au and 4m @ 4.61g/t Au have been reported (refer RNS of 12 August 2016 and 21 September 2017).
We need to study figs 1&2 because they show the extent of the 1km anomalies. It’s confirming the depth too imo.
The presence of the main vein zone along the contact zone supports the idea of rheological contrast (flow of matter in liquid state or soft solid) across the structural target.
Therefore favourable for structural target and gold mineralisation. (My interpretation, happy to be corrected) We need another geology lesson from Len & Victor.
From today’s RNS 03/10/19
The anomalies define a steeply east dipping target zone up to 100m wide and open at depth, which is coincident with the contact margin of a circular coarse-grained gneiss body within shallow west dipping medium grained gneisses. The geophysics results suggest depth continuity of the coarse gneiss and is interpreted to represent a metamorphosed sub-vertical intrusive body within a shallow west dipping sedimentary package. The presence of the Main Vein zone along this contact supports the model of a contact zone with rheological contrast and typically a favourable structural target for gold mineralisation.
I’m still going through it all.
Cape Coast MRE JORC out in Q1 2020. They have obviously gone for putting their ‘Best foot forward’ as Vince alluded to at the Shareholder meeting on 02/04/19.
A very positive RNS today with clear direction on the open and expandable Cape Coast Resource with multiple new targets identified.
Extensive drilling completed with more planned and underway. The lithium licences that IronRidge hold are huge and only a fraction has been explored so far. However, Ewoyaa and the different add ons on Middling, West, North & North East all show the extent of what would/will be a globally significant lithium discovery. The JORC will establish the scale and overall numbers but it will certainly be catching the eye of the big players whether they be auto makers, Battery makers or corporate mining giants.
Once the numbers are in then company will be underpinned by the JORC & broker re-evaluations. The conversations the CEO and BoD can have with different agencies will certainly be interesting then.
https://tribuneonlineng.com/toyota-to-build-vehicle-assembly-plants-in-ghana-ivory-coast/amp/
Farq et al,
Toyota Tsusho Corporation are also looking to move into Ivory Coast and build an assembly plant there. An MoU with Côte d’Ivoire was signed on Thursday.
96 Gigafactories says it all. It will be 100 before the end of September imo.
The demand for EV Lithium-ion batteries continues to grow & from what I’ve read & ascertained from talking to people along he way, the disconnect continues and the junior explorers like IRR could be timing things just right.
The next 12-18 months will see the EV sales curve ramp up and not enough Lithium hit the market. Tipping point for EV is 2022/23 when EV costs match ICE cars.
Battery costs continue to reduce. The $250-$300bn invested in the EV sector so far and a similar amount in Lithium-ion battery development and factories as well as JV & M&A in the exploration space means the industry is set up for Lithium ion for at least the next ten years.
LCE & Hydroxide are both in demand and will continue to be so.
Battery makers are looking for good grades and low impurities because it means less time refining the raw material & reduced costs. IRR have Spodumene with very low impurities with exceptional metallurgical results.
Large projects of scale are clearly more desirable and the news today about multiple drill rigs and the link up with Geodrill is very positive news imo.
In conclusion, the demand is set to increase, M&A will continue with more big players joining the game, possibly from Big Oil & Big Chem.
Imo IronRidge will have two Lithium mines. I’m in for the ride and accumulating as I go.
I’m still here but have been travelling a bit recently in and out of the country and popped to London yesterday.
I’ll read through the threads but I don’t like the new format of LSE. I find it harder to keep track.
I’ve actually been doing some background work on the global Lithium supply chain and building up my own Lithium spreadsheet & database. I now have 117 companies entered across different continents and countries.
I wanted to see how IRR compare with other resources and have to say when you look at an overview with comparative data it’s quite obvious why the Cape Coast project stands out.
Creating my own research helps to give me a better understanding of the bigger picture. I’ve shared a lot of information via twitter but won’t be sharing that spreadsheet with hyperlinks to all companies and their resources and corporate data. I’ve about 50-60 hrs work in it.
Toro has been head down with work.
The big shortfall is coming and the Lithium supply chains are not secured imo. The battery makers and auto makers have taken contracts but I suspect can’t fulfill them. They must be in a panic and realise they’re going to have to pay more.
My analysis of all the companies clearly shows that not enough projects will be ready.
IronRidge are so well positioned.
Multiple quartz veins identified at Zaranou when mapping the artisanal pits. Look at the diagram.
Actually count the veins to see why it’s exciting and work out what’s coming.
I think there are 9 veins identified at Dorothe.
The difference at Zaranou is the intensity of the veins and close proximity. (As IRR tweeted today).
No wonder Zaranou has been fast tracked.
The share price is a joke right now but will bounce as the significance sinks in. Add the Lithium MR too and then think about those options being met.
Mike, Liontown just announced a large extension to their resource. Only 353% up on resource expectation. Now that was worth waiting for.
The Cape Coast Project is huge and keeps on growing.
Thanks for posting the interview link Wadnob. There’s so much packed into that interview, it’s worth listening a couple of times. That was the day after the Shareholder presentation and Q&A on 2nd April.
I missed the bit about strategic support from Sumitomo and the reference to the data they provide.