eEnergy Group Regulatory News (EAAS)

25 April 2018

Alexander Mining plc

("Alexander" or the "Company")

Research and Development Update

Alexander is pleased to provide an update on its research and development activities.

Lithium - research and development joint venture

Alexander is pleased to announce an extension and expansion of the Lithium Ore Processing Joint Venture ("JV") has been agreed with Dr. Nicholas Welham. Dr. Welham has been Alexander's Principal Technological Consultant for around 10 years and is a principal inventor of the Company's proprietary AmmLeach® and HyperLeach™ technologies.

Dr. Welham has recently identified some potential opportunities which are not presently captured within the JV, which currently covers the testing and development of a potential heap leaching process for hard rock lithium ores. As a consequence, the JV will now additionally investigate reducing the complexity and cost of the conversion process from mineral to battery grade lithium carbonate and/or hydroxide. There is continued and increasing interest from the mining industry in hard rock sources of lithium, including in some regions not generally known to be lithium rich, to which the potential heap leaching processing technology could be applicable.

Preliminary discussions with potential partners in the UK, rest of Europe and Australia are underway with a view to increasing the funding available for development stages subsequent to the initial 'proof of concept' stage from both private and governmental sources. A further announcement will be made when new arrangements are in place.

Given these new developments, the timing for reporting the initial JV test results will be revised and reported upon in due course.

HyperLeach®

Work on the HyperLeach® trials of a nickel-cobalt flotation tailings sample will be undertaken in the next few weeks. The successful completion of the project would allow Alexander to seek significant funding to bring into rapid production a small scale, low cost operation to produce battery grade nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate for sale into the battery market.

A second HyperLeach® trial is planned to run for the next few months to examine the heap leaching of low grade copper sulphide ore. Chalcopyrite bearing copper ores are notoriously slow to leach under atmospheric conditions. HyperLeach® has been shown to leach ground chalcopyrite ores and flotation concentrates very rapidly, but the behaviour in a heap leach scenario has not been explored. The decreasing head grade worldwide of chalcopyrite ores makes it increasingly difficult to use flotation and smelting to economically produce copper metal thereby opening up such ores to lower cost options, such as heap leaching. 

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014. 

ENDS

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