Narryer Metals to acquire Big Hill and Fran lithium-tantalum projects in Canada
Narryer Metals (ASX: NYM) will gain a 70% interest in two lithium-tantalum projects near to Canada’s Yellowknife lithium province when it finalises the acquisition of private company Highway Lithium this quarter.
The Big Hill and Fran projects cover an area of 98 square kilometres across the Tier 1 Archaean Slave Craton in the Northwest Territories and contain mapped lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites which are believed to host significant mineralisation.
They are expected to give the company an early opportunity to service North America’s lithium battery supply chain.
Active lithium area
Big Hill is in an area of active lithium exploration, sharing a boundary with the BIG project owned by Canadian company Li-FT Power.
LCT pegmatites have previously been identified on the Big Hill mineral claims, with spodumene-bearing pegmatites in channel and rock chips generating assays up to 2.6% lithium oxide.
Fran is expected to provide good exposure to lithium-tantalum, with past evidence of high-grade samples up to 0.6% tantalum pentoxide from the Riber pegmatite.
Narryer has commenced preparations for exploration activities, including a diamond drilling program, to start in May across both projects.
Acquisition terms
Under the terms of the acquisition, Narryer will pay Highway an upfront non-refundable exclusivity fee of $50,000 plus 2.5 million ordinary shares and 2.5 million options exercisable at $0.10 each before 31 December 2026.
For the acquisition itself, Narryer will pay Highway an additional $50,000 plus 12.5 million shares and a 1.5% net smelter return (NSR) royalty from revenue generated from the production of lithium and 2.5% from the production of other minerals.
A deferred consideration, dependant on exploration success, will comprise 7.5 million shares on trenching or drilling results returning a minimum 5 metres at 1.0% lithium oxide on at least one project by March 2026; 10 million shares on delivery of three intercepts of at least 10m at 1.0% lithium oxide or higher by March 2027; and 10 million shares on the delineation of a 5 million tonne inferred resource at a minimum grade of 0.9% lithium oxide by March 2029.
In the event that Big Hill or Fran progress to a bankable feasibility study, Highway shareholders will have the option to fund the expenditure commitments pro-rata or convert the remaining 30% equity into a royalty in addition to the existing NSR.
Geological location
Big Hill and Fran are geologically-hosted in the Archaean Slave Craton, which has a history of gold, rare earth elements and uranium mining and contains around 50 known occurrences of lithium.
Current Australian explorers in the region include Loyal Lithium (ASX: LLI), Midas Minerals (ASX: MM1) and Trinex Minerals (ASX: TX3).
The southwest portion of the Craton (near Yellowknife) is believed to have abundant fertile source granites, with related LCT pegmatitic dykes hosted in metasediments of the Yellowknife Supergroup.
A first pass exploration program was completed at Big Hill in June and included ground truthing of satellite imagery targets; handheld LIBS sampling to identify the presence of lithium; preliminary channel sampling of key pegmatites; and a LIDAR survey.
Naryyer discovered a spodumene-bearing pegmatite just north of the Big mineral claim boundary, measuring approximately 12 metres in width and striking in the same northeast direction as Big’s mineralisation.
Several two-mica granite dykes have also been encountered on the property and warrant further work.
Fran dyke swarms
Fran sits 10km north of Big Hill over an area of approximately 36sqkm, and comprises the Riber, Fran 1 and Fran 2 fractionated pegmatite dyke swarms, with beryl and rare earth occurrences.
Riber was historically investigated for beryllium, gem quality tourmaline (indicolite) and tantalum-niobium.
Rare minerals observed include amblygonite-montebrasite (lithium), triphylite-lepidolite (lithium), beryl (beryllium) and columbite-tantalite (rare earth elements and tantalum).
Although lithium-bearing minerals were identified in previous work within Riber’s highly-fractionated and internally-zoned pegmatite, no assays were completed to quantify lithium content.
Tantalum-focused exploration in 1999 identified high-grade samples with values up to 0.57% tantalum pentoxide, 0.53% niobium pentoxide, 0.09% rubidium, and 0.02% caesium.
Capital raising
Narryer has received binding commitments from new and existing investors to raise $1.05 million through a placement of 26.25 million shares at $0.04 each.
The issue price represents a 42.9% premium to the company’s last traded price on 6 March and a 28.9%% premium to the 10-day VWAP (volume weighted average price) of $0.031.
The placement will be carried out in two tranches and net proceeds will be used to conduct further exploration at the Big Hill and Fran projects on completion of the acquisition.
Narryer has appointed Morgans Corporate as lead manager to the placement.