A very nice, detailed Quarterly Report. Unfortunately, someone decided to take advantage of the additional interest and volume of the quarterly release and decided to sell a few shares, creating a red day. However, this will be recovered in due course, with several key news flow items coming up. These include:
- Lake Hope Project: Early-stage exploration on several other lakes in the area for further alumina & various fertiliser by-products. Assays have been received and are being interpreted.
- Doonia Project: Soil geochemistry results in interpretation stage and to be announced shortly.
- Arkun-Beau Project: Infill and extensional soil geochemical surveys were completed to define potential drill targets, with assay results expected this quarter.
- Lake Hope PFS in Q4 2024.
My Thoughts:
Positives:
- $3.5M in the bank accounts to the end of June 2024. IMO more than enough to get us through 2024, finalise the PFS and regional exploration. Probably not enough to support any diamond drilling programs, but potentially an RC, AC program before the end of the year, depending on what these soil geochemistry results come back with. Sounds like news on these results soon!
- No threatened or priority species of Flora & Fauna for Lake Hope. This was already known, but huge news, as it would have at minimum seriously delayed or jeapardised the project with green/environmental groups putting up roadblocks and court cases etc. The only other hurdle now is to get indigenous groups on board, but it sounds like early-stage discussions are going well.
- Generally, workflow is high across the IPT portfolio, they are not just confining themselves to Lake Hope and awaiting PFS milestones, they are keeping active on other tenures and also relinquishing ground which is not favourable to save costs and streamline the portfolio and focus areas. The more newsflow the better!
Negatives:
- Hyperion REE Prospect with poor metallurgical recoveries, making this unviable and focus has now shifted from REE's here. It does not mean there is not potential for base metals and other commodities, it just means REE focus has come to an end. The positive was that the drilling was co-funded so not a lot of money wasted to come to these conclusions, but still disappointing considering the wider market excitement for REE at the moment.
- Broken Hill BHP Xplor program is slow and ongoing, data interpretation still happening many months after completion of the drilling. Seems like this is very low on the priority table for both IPT and BHP. A shame because if explored more in depth I am certain there are some decent base metals deposits in these tenures IMO. It sounds like management are keen to separate from BHP and find a JV partner to progress this project, maybe even a farm-in agreement so the other party can spend the money here while we still hold some exposure. Clearly Lake Hope is the main focus as it should be!
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