REG - Altona Rare Earths - Sesana Copper Project Final Agreement

Altona Rare EarthsAnnouncement

27/01/2025 07:00

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RNS Number : 7626U  Altona Rare Earths PLC  27 January 2025

27 January 2025

 

 

ALTONA RARE EARTHS PLC

("Altona" or "the Company")

 

 

SESANA COPPER PROJECT FINAL AGREEMENT

 

Altona (LSE: REE), a resource exploration and development company focused on
critical raw materials in Africa, is pleased to announce that, further to the
exercise of the Sesana copper project option announced on 29 July 2024, it has
entered into a final agreement with Ignate African Minerals (Pty) Ltd
("Ignate") with respect to prospecting licence PL2329/2023 ("Tenement"),
located in the Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana.

 

Sesana copper project final agreement signature

 

Further to the signature of a binding option agreement with Ignate with
respect to the Tenement announced on 9 April 2024, and to the exercise of the
option announced on 29 July 2024, Ignate and the Company have signed the final
agreement, which will allow the Company to acquire an interest of up to 85% in
the Tenement, in consideration for payments in three tranches spread over a
period of four years totalling USD 110,000 in cash and USD 250,000 in new
Altona shares ("Shares"), with phased exploration technical and expenditure
commitments . The agreement is subject to conditions precedents including the
transfer of the Tenement to Sesana Copper (Pty) Ltd, a Botswana-registered
company held 51% by Altona and 49% by the shareholders of Ignate.

 

These payments and minimum expenditure commitments are broken down as follows:

 

 Phase         Payments to Ignate shareholders  Expenditure commitments                                                  % of Tenement earned-in by Altona
 Phase 1       USD 50,000 in Shares(1)          USD 100,000 (geophysics, definition of drilling targets)                 51%

 (12 months)
 Phase 2       USD 50,000 in cash               USD 400,000 (initial drilling, 2,000m minimum)                           70%

 (18 months)   USD 100,000 in Shares(2)
 Phase 3       USD 50,000 in cash               USD 1,000,000 (maiden JORC mineral resource estimate, conceptual study)  85%

 (18 months)   USD 100,000 in Shares(3)

 

(1)     Shares will be priced at the VWAP for the 10 days before the
signature of the final agreement and issued when the conditions precedents are
fulfilled

(2)      Shares will be priced at the VWAP for the 10 days before the start
of phase 2

(3)      Shares will be priced at the VWAP for the 10 days before the start
of phase 3

 

Post this earn-in period, non-funding parties will be diluted according to a
standard straight line dilution formula and, if their interest falls below
10%, it will be replaced by a 1% Net Smelter Royalty.

 

Should a resource of over 20 million tonnes at over 1% Cu equivalent be
defined, the original Tenement owner will also be entitled to a one-off
payment of USD 250,000 in cash and USD 250,000 in Shares issued at the VWAP
for the 10 days before the announcement of the corresponding resource
statement.

 

The Tenement is located in the Kalahari Copper Belt, about 25km from the
low-cost Khoemacau Copper-Silver underground mine, and close to Galileo
Resources' licence PL039/2018 and ARC Mineral's licence PL135/2017 (Virgo
Copper-Silver Project). Recent interpretation of regional airborne magnetic
data shows that a ca. 10km long stretch of the contact between the D'Kar and
Ngwako Pan formations contact is passing through the northern part of the
Tenement, along the eastern margin of a fold structure, which makes it a
perfect setting for copper-silver mineralisation.

 

The project is currently undergoing environmental permitting processes to
enable the start of exploration activities on the ground. Exploration
activities will start with high-resolution geophysical surveys in order to
identify and select the most promising drilling targets along the D'Kar /
Ngwako Pan formations contact, and will be followed by drilling.

 

 

Cedric Simonet, CEO of Altona, commented: "I am very pleased to start 2025
with this significant step forward for the Sesana copper project. The
signature of the Sesana copper project final agreement will enable the Company
to focus on on-going environmental permitting to enable the start of
exploration activities as soon as possible."

 

This announcement contains information which, prior to its disclosure, was
inside information as stipulated under Regulation 11 of the Market Abuse
(Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019/310 (as amended).

 

To subscribe for RNS alerts, please visit: https://investors.altonare.com/
(https://investors.altonare.com/)

-ends-

 

Altona Rare Earths Plc

Cédric Simonet,
CEO
+44 (0) 7778 866 108

Louise Adrian, CFO
                                          +44 (0) 7721
492 922

 

Novum Securities
Limited
+44 (0) 20 7399 9400

David
Coffman

Daniel Harris

 

 

About Altona Rare Earths Plc

 

Altona is a resource exploration and development company focused on critical
raw materials in Africa. The Company is listed on the Main Market of the
London Stock Exchange with the ticker "REE". The Company currently holds
copper, fluorspar and rare earths projects.

 

The Monte Muambe rare earths and fluorspar projects is located in Northwest
Mozambique. The Project was acquired in June 2021, and the Company has so far
drilled over 7,800m, and defined a maiden JORC Mineral Resource Estimate of
13.6 million tons at 2.42% TREO. A Competent Person Report including the
Scoping Study for Monte Muambe was published on 18 October 2023. The Project
is now at Prefeasibility Study stage, with a focus on metallurgical testing
for rare earths extraction.

 

The Company is also assessing the possibility of rapidly putting in production
high-grade fluorspar veins occurring at Monte Muambe along the western margin
of the rare earth bearing carbonatite intrusion.

 

Altona is presently diversifying its portfolio by acquiring a limited number
of critical raw material projects to complement Monte Muambe. The acquisitions
of the Kabompo South copper project in Zambia and of the Sesana copper-silver
project in Botswana, located just 25 km from MMG's Khoemacau Zone 5
copper-silver mine, represent the first steps towards the implementation of
this expanded strategy.

 

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