REG - Strategic Minerals - CRL part of UKRI £4.5m Green Economies Centre

Strategic MineralsAnnouncement

07/10/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 0879H  Strategic Minerals PLC  07 October 2024

 

7 October 2024

Strategic Minerals plc

("Strategic Minerals" or the "Company")

 

Cornwall Resources Limited's involvement with UKRI £4.5m Green Economies
Centre

 

Strategic Minerals plc (AIM: SML; USOTC: SMCDY), a profitable producing
mineral company, is pleased to update shareholders on the current progress at
its 100% owned subsidiary Cornwall Resources Limited ("CRL").  CRL confirms
its involvement in a newly announced, UK Research and Innovation ("UKRI")
funded, Green Economies Centre to be based at the University of Exeter.  CRL
will co-lead one of the trans-disciplinary work packages within the new
Centre, with a focus on using CRL's Duchy of Cornwall licence area as a
physical laboratory for new ideas and the development of extraction
frameworks.

Highlights:

 

·    CRL's Project Manager, Dennis Rowland, played a key role throughout
the process in the University of Exeter securing £4.5 million in funding for
the establishment of the Critical Minerals Accelerating in the Green Economy
Centre.

·    The Green Economy Centre's focus is on sustainable extraction of tin,
tungsten, lithium and other critical minerals, to support the UK's transition
to a green economy.  With a keen focus on advancing projects towards major
new, high value, job creation across the region.

·    CRL is to co-lead one of the trans-disciplinary packages and will
co-contribute through access to its extensive mineral rights footprint,
including CRL's Duchy of Cornwall licence, and personnel support.

·    Involvement strongly aligns with the Company's strategic objectives
for Redmoor, one of which is the continued expansion of its understanding of
the geology and prospectivity of its Tamar Valley Licence Area, licenced from
the Duchy of Cornwall.

·    CRL to benefit from industrial and academic collaboration and project
support, with access to international-level research and innovation concerning
the sustainable extraction of minerals, and the development of social licence
to operate.

·    Closer ties and positive support for the southwest and its
georesources sector from UKRI, and HM Department of Business and Trade.

Background

CRL, and a large group of industry partners, joined the University of Exeter,
and its Camborne School of Mines, in the co-creation of a funding application
to UKRI for a new 'Green Economies Centre'.  This Centre will address
technical challenges associated with emerging mineral deposits, foster
partnerships with local communities, and promote sustainable investment to
fund the green economy.  This project aligns with the UK's Critical Minerals
Strategy, supporting the responsible sourcing of raw materials essential for
digital technologies and advanced manufacturing.

The application was successful and, today resulted in UKRI announcing £4.5m
funding for the project, which will be matched across a 4-year period through
in-kind project activities and cash spending by all the projects contributing
parties.  CRL will provide its licence area as a field site for the
acquisition of new datasets and as a trial site, with the aim, in conjunction
with project partners, of the development and testing of frameworks and
expertise in responsible extraction of new and alternative critical minerals
deposits.

The Centre will focus on sustainable extraction of tin, tungsten, lithium and
other critical minerals, to support the UK's transition to a green economy.
With a keen focus on advancing projects towards major new, high value, job
creation across the region.  This will entail collaboration with the
University of Exeter, and Camborne School of Mines, local industry partners
such as Petrolab, Geolorn, who are also co-leads for other work packages, as
well as other participating companies and others, to drive innovation and the
responsible sourcing of raw materials, with support from local and national
Government.

 

Commenting, Peter Wale, Director CRL, Executive Director SML, said:

"I congratulate the University of Exeter on advancing through a competitive
application and selection process and in securing this significant UKRI
investment.  This funding is a further acknowledgement of the southwest's
position at the forefront of the UK's domestic critical minerals industry.

"CRL's team, alongside other Cornish-based companies, joined the University in
the co-creation of the successful funding bid, with our Project Manager,
Dennis Rowland, also taking a key role in the entire process.

"CRL will co-lead, with Camborne School of Mines, one of the planned pillar
projects of the new centre which we believe will assist CRL in its
understanding of the geological nature of the area covered by its recently
acquired Duchy Licence alongside investigations into the responsible
extraction of potential surface stores of critical minerals.

"A thank you, also, to the HM Department of Business and Trade for its support
of our project, as part of the wider bid, and their further committed support
for the Centre moving forward.

"We look forward to updating the market on the program's progress across this
exciting 4-year project, working alongside the University and other
southwest-based businesses and stakeholders, to advance the new Green
Economies Centre."

Commenting, Professor Frances Wall, Camborne School of Mines at the University
of Exeter & lead investigator for the Centre, commented:

"This is a wonderful opportunity to focus on helping our industry colleagues
accelerate all the businesses in the region related to critical minerals. We
are collaborating with local government and community organisations, aiming to
be an exemplar of sustainable regional development from use of our natural
resources, and have global reach with our solutions."

Commenting, Dr. Kate Hamer, UKRI Associate Director, Building a Green Future,
said:

"Transitioning to a sustainable green economy is a win-win for all, it creates
new jobs, new partnerships and new industries.

"Through investment in collaboration between researchers and innovators, we
harness our collective effort across the public and private sector, driving
innovation to secure the future of our environment and deliver economic
growth."

 

 For further information, please contact:

 Strategic Minerals plc                                   +61 (0) 414 727 965
 John Peters
 Managing Director
 Website:               www.strategicminerals.net (http://www.strategicminerals.net)
 Email:                 info@strategicminerals.net (mailto:info@strategicminerals.net)

 Follow Strategic Minerals on:
 Vox Markets:           https://www.voxmarkets.co.uk/company/SML/
                        (https://www.voxmarkets.co.uk/company/SML/)
 Twitter:               @SML_Minerals (https://twitter.com/SML_Minerals)
 LinkedIn:              https://www.linkedin.com/company/strategic-minerals-plc
                        (https://www.linkedin.com/company/strategic-minerals-plc)

 SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP                           +44 (0) 20 3470 0470
 Nominated Adviser and Broker
 Matthew Johnson
 Ewan Leggat
 Charlie Bouverat

 

Notes to Editors

Strategic Minerals
plc:
                              https://www.strategicminerals.
(https://www.strategicminerals.) net

Strategic Minerals plc is an AIM-quoted, profitable operating minerals company
actively developing projects tailored to materials expected to benefit from
strong demand in the future. It has an operation in the United States of
America along with development projects in the UK and Australia. The Company
is focused on utilising its operating cash flows, along with capital raisings,
to develop high quality projects aimed at supplying the metals and minerals
likely to be highly demanded in the future.

In September 2011, Strategic Minerals acquired the distribution rights to the
Cobre magnetite tailings dam project in New Mexico, USA, a cash-generating
asset, which it brought into production in 2012 and which continues to provide
a revenue stream for the Company. This operating revenue stream is utilised to
cover company overheads and invest in development projects aimed at supplying
the metals and minerals likely to be highly demanded in the future.

In May 2016, the Company entered into an agreement with New Age Exploration
Limited and, in February 2017, acquired 50% of the Redmoor Tin/Tungsten
project in Cornwall, UK. The bulk of the funds from the Company's investment
were utilised to complete a drilling programme that year. The drilling
programme resulted in a significant upgrade of the resource. This was followed
in 2018 with a 12-hole 2018 drilling programme has now been completed and the
resource update that resulted was announced in February 2019. In March 2019,
the Company entered arrangements to acquire the balance of the Redmoor
Tin/Tungsten project which was settled on 24 July 2019 by way of a vendor loan
which was fully repaid on 26 June 2020.

In March 2018, the Company completed the acquisition of the Leigh Creek Copper
Mine situated in the copper rich belt of South Australia and brought the
project temporarily into production in April 2019. In July 2021, the project
was granted a conditional approval by the South Australian Government for a
Program for Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation (PEPR) in relation to
mining of its Paltridge North deposit and processing at the Mountain of Light
installation. In late June 2022, an updated PEPR, addressing the conditions
associated with the July 2021 approval, was approved.

About Cornwall Resources
Limited
https://www.cornwallresources.com (https://www.cornwallresources.com)

Cornwall Resources Limited ("CRL") is a wholly owned subsidiary of Strategic
Minerals Limited ("SML") (AIM: SML; USOTC: SMCDY). SML bought into CRL in
2016, and in 2019 completed the purchase of the project. CRL is focussed on
advancing the high-grade, underground Redmoor Tungsten-Tin-Copper Project,
through a current relogging and sampling campaign of CRL drillcore, and work
towards securing further funding to advance Redmoor, as well as exploring its
significant and highly prospective minerals rights licence areas in east
Cornwall, Southwest England.

CRL through mineral rights agreements, with Redmoor Minerals Limited, The
Duchy of Cornwall, and a third mineral rights owner, has exclusive access to a
mineral rights operating area of 91.67 km² in the highly prospective and
historically mined Tamar Valley Mining District. CRL is undertaking regional
and targeted exploration activities to develop critical minerals resources.

The Redmoor Project is situated within the historically significant Tamar
Valley Mining District, yet the sheeted vein system ("SVS") which forms the
basis of CRL's inferred resource is unmined. CRL's most recent,
JORC-compliant, Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") for Redmoor
utilised a comprehensive archive of historical data and combined this with
information from the completion of two exploration campaigns, in 2017 and
2018, which encompassed 32 drillholes for 14,000m of diamond core drilling.
Based on this high-grade resource, an updated Scoping Study, published in 2020
shows that Redmoor has potentially economic viability as a new, underground
mine.

JORC Compliant (2012) Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate published 14 February
2019, as summarised below:

 Cut-off (SnEq%)          Tonnage (Mt)  WO(3)  Sn    Cu    Sn Eq(1)  WO(3) Eq

                                        %      %     %     %         %
 >0.45 <0.65              1.50          0.18   0.21  0.30  0.58      0.41
 >0.65                    10.20         0.62   0.16  0.53  1.26      0.88
 Total Inferred Resource  11.70         0.56   0.16  0.50  1.17      0.82

1 Equivalent metal calculation notes; Sn(Eq)% = Sn%*1 + WO3%*1.43 + Cu%*0.40.
WO(3)(EQ)% = SN%*0.7+ WO(3)+Cu%*0.28. Commodity price assumptions: WO3 US$
33,000/t, Sn US$ 22,000/t, Cu US$ 7,000/t. Recovery assumptions: total WO3
recovery 72%, total Sn recovery 68% & total Cu recovery 85% and payability
assumptions of 81%, 90% and 90% respectively

Subject to receipt of necessary funding, CRL has in place all necessary
permissions for drill programs for further significant exploration of the
Redmoor Tungsten-Tin-Copper resource.

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