Sabre Resources snaps up three vanadium projects in WA

Sabre Resources (ASX: SBR) has announced it will swallow up Kinetic Metals Pty Ltd and its West Australian vanadium prospects following the completion of a A$1.6 million oversubscribed placement to sophisticated and professional investors.

Sabre will acquire Kinetic and its Speewah, Unaly and Balla vanadium projects to take a 100% interest in the prospective land located in Western Australia.

The company also revealed it had completed a placement at A$0.015 per share to raise gross proceeds of A$1,588,000.

If shareholders agree, it will attach a free option to each share that can be executed at A$0.03 each by 31 October 2019. Sabre is also hoping to launch a further capital raising for ordinary investors, capping total subscriptions at A$500,000.

Sabre’s board says it is well placed to “take advantage of the dynamic market conditions that relate to the dominant battery-metals sector”.

“We consider the proposed acquisition of Kinetic Metals and these WA-based vanadium projects as an excellent opportunity for Sabre to commence exploration in areas which are host to several large vanadium-titanium deposits,” said the board whose directors include David Chapman, Michael Scivolo and Robert Collins.

The directors called the completion of the placement a demonstration of the attractiveness of its portfolio and the projects it would acquire.

“The company is now well funded to advance its exploration activities at the Sherlock Bay nickel-cobalt project as well as conduct early-stage exploration at the Kinetic Metals projects, following completion,” the board members said collectively.

Next steps

Sabre will continue to conduct a due diligence process for the WA project acquisitions, looking at the technical and legal aspects of Kinetic Metals and the projects in controls.

The company is also planning further exploration and a spin-out of its Namibian assets to a new company it hopes to list on the Australian Securities Exchange. The assets include land returning high grades of lead-vanadium mineralisation, a lead-zinc resource and high-grade copper.

Balla baby

Acquisition target Kinetic’s Balla vanadium project is located in the North West of WA.

Sabre said the prospect had similar mineralisation to Forge Resources’ (ASX: FRG) Balla-Balla iron-vanadium-titanium project which hosts a JORC resource of 456 million tonnes at 0.65% vanadium oxide, 13.7% titanium dioxide and 45% iron.

Tando Resources is another junior operating in the Pilbara region, finding zinc and copper mineralisation at its Quartz Bore project in February.

Tando’s believes the multiple anomalies it found were extensions to the Balla-Balla prospect, with initial drilling at Quartz Bore returning 17 metres grading 2.95% copper and 1.48% zinc from 340.5m.

Speewah king

Kinetic’s 170.7 square kilometre Speewah prospect is further northeast in WA’s Kimberley region, near the Northern Territory border.

The prospect is adjacent to and adjoining to King River Copper’s (ASX: KRC) Speewah Dome project, where Kinetic’s neighbour achieved the highest grades of vanadium concentrate in Australia.

Speewah Dome hosts a JORC resource of 4.7 billion tonnes at 0.3% vanadium, 2% titanium and 14.7% iron.

Unaly surety

Seller Kinetic’s third prospect, the Unaly vanadium project, is adjacent and adjoining to Surefire Resources (ASX: SRN) Unaly Hill project which hosts a JORC resource of 86.2 million tonnes at 0.42% vanadium, 4.5% titanium and 24% iron.

Sabre securities rocketed 68.8% to A$0.027 by lunchtime.