Alien Metals Ltd (AIM:UFO, OTC:ASLRF) has entered into a binding Heads of Agreement with Mallina Exploration Pty Ltd to acquire a strategic tenement, currently under application with the Department of Mines, bounding the Hancock iron ore project in Australia.
Alien has also applied directly for two additional exploration licences within the Hancock area, ELA47/4605 or 'Hancock West', and ELA47/4817 or 'Hancock Northwest', which provide future resource growth opportunities.
"This is a key strategic acquisition of the tenement application located on the southwestern boundary of Hancock,” said Bill Brodie Good, chief executive of Alien Metals.
“This underlies the optimum route of the planned haul road to enable extraction of the iron ore from Hancock to market via the shortest and most unencumbered route. The farm-in commitment allows us to include the relevant geotechnical work required from us on the haul road. We therefore view this as coming well within our general project budget. This is a further significant step in de-risking the project and enabling us to have full control to get the project into production.”
The plan is to be mining at Hancock next year.
Hancock hosts a gross JORC compliant inferred Mineral Resource of 10.4mln tonnes at 60.4% iron.