King River Resources produces 99.99% HPA from Speewah for burgeoning market
Initial test work on King River Resources’ Speewah ore has produced 99.99% HPA.
King River Resources (ASX: KRR) has generated 99.99% (4N) high purity alumina (HPA) while undertaking test work on ore from its wholly owned Speewah speciality metals project in Western Australia’s east Kimberley.
According to the company, the board is encouraged by the outcome of the initial HPA precipitation test – shoring up the potential of adding another revenue stream to the Speewah project.
“Steps are current being made to try and include aluminium and magnesium to our JORC resource statements to enable these potential future revenue streams to be included in prefeasibility studies,” the company stated.
With HPA a critical material for the surging LED and lithium-ion battery markets, adding it to its Speewah revenue stream could prove a boon for King River.
Speewah specialty metals project
While King River is investigating the viability of generating HPA from Speewah ore, the company’s focus at the project is on unlocking the vanadium pentoxide, titanium dioxide and iron oxide products.
At the start of April, King River posted an amended resource for the project of 4.7 billion tonnes at 0.30% vanadium pentoxide, 14.7% iron, and 3.3% titanium dioxide.
A pre-feasibility study is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2019, with a March progress update revealing estimated capital expenditure of $939 million develop an agitated tank leach processing route.
King River’s goal is to produce five high purity products from Speewah: vanadium pentoxide, titanium dioxide, iron, HPA and magnesium.
Mt Remarkable gold project
In addition to advancing Speewah, King River is also unlocking the gold potential at its Mt Remarkable project in WA.
Drilling at the project late last year returned notable intersections of 4m at 19.88 grams per tonne gold, including 1m at 69.30g/t gold from 21m; 2m at 10.47g/t gold from 33m; and 3m at 4.29g/t gold, including 1m at 6.7g/t gold from 27m.
Earlier this month, King River secured a new exploration licence for Mt Remarkable and plans to carry out reconnaissance mapping at the newly granted tenement this month, in addition to planning for a drilling campaign at primary targets across the project during the September quarter.
Investors reacted positively to news King River had produce 99.99% HPA, with the company’s share price shooting up more than 18% to reach $0.026 by late morning.