Platina Resources – A once in a Blue Moon opportunity

Platina Resources Limited () has a portfolio of projects in Australia, Greenland and the USA (Figure 1). These projects cover a variety of metals including scandium, gold, platinum group metals (PGM), zinc and copper.

Corey Nolan is the managing director of the company. He has more than 25 years’ experience in the acquisition, funding, exploration and development of natural resources projects. He was previously the chief executive officer of () and managing director of Limited and (). He is currently also a non-executive director of Elementos.

Figure 1: Location of Platina Resources’ projects

Source Platina Resources

The 100%-owned Owendale Scandium Project is located in New South Wales, Australia (Figure 2). The company completed a definitive feasibility study (DFS) at the project in 2018, which defined a post-tax net present value (using an 8% discount rate) of US$166mln and a post-tax internal rate of return of 29%.

Since completing the DFS, Platina has been seeking an offtake partner and lodging the mining lease application. During 2020, the company is continuing to work on a scandium offtake marketing programme, which is targeting potential customers in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Figure 2: The Owendale Scandium Project

Source Platina Resources

The Skaergaard Gold-PGM Project is located on the east coast of Greenland. The project is considered by Platina to be one of the world’s largest undeveloped gold deposits and one of the largest palladium resources outside of South Africa and Russia.

Skaergaard has a JORC 2012 compliant mineral resources estimate of 5.7 million ounces (moz) of gold and 8.7moz of palladium, which at current metal prices is 20moz of gold equivalent at a grade of 3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold equivalent. Platina is currently working to find a financial and technical partner to help develop the project.

At the Blue Moon Project, Platina is earning up to a 70% interest in the project by spending C$7m over 36 months. The Blue Moon Project is located in California, USA, around 150 kilometres (km) from the Oakland export port by sealed roads. The project also benefits from being 1km away from a low-cost hydro-electric power source.

The project has a NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate of 7.8mln tonnes at a grade of 4.95% zinc, 0.46% copper, 1.33 g/t gold with a zinc equivalent grade of 8.07%. Platina believes it can build on this initial resource estimate and is currently undertaking a 10,000 metre (m) diamond drilling programme.

Around 2,000m of the 10,000m have been drilled to date and the balance is expected to be drilled during the first three months of this year. Initial results from the first hole in this drilling programme have just been announced today. These results…