One of the longer-term historical criticisms of the IPT...

One of the longer-term historical criticisms of the IPT exploration strategic plans over the years, has been the broad diversification of exploration deposits with a real or implied fragmentation of corporate focus. Lake Hope has changed all that.

This article is significant in providing clarity on the current and future focus of the company with some serious statements of intent across a range of intent for IPT.

Thanks! @DifficultLife10 for spotting and publishing the link!

The very positive Mets update:

“The LTL Process removes the requirement for sulphuric acid — a key part of the Playa One Sulphate Process — and reduces the number of processing steps from 5 to 4, which Impact said could offer further cost reductions compared to the Playa One Sulphate Process that formed the basis of the Lake Hope Scoping Study in November.”

“The energy requirement comes down, the capital expenditure comes down, and the number of pieces — literally the number of pieces of gear you need — is also significantly reduced,” Jones says.

“Without wanting to be too confident in the marketplace, the LTL Process is looking like the go at the moment.”

Though Impact now has two processing avenues, both will continue to undergo optimisation activities — a decision Jones says will provide the coming PFS with greater flexibility.

“For example, we were going to buy our sulfuric acid, that was in the Scoping Study. But we’ve now discovered that for marginal extra capex, we could actually produce our own sulfuric acid,” Jones adds.

“Sulfuric acid plants generate a lot of heat and they generally use that energy to power the rest of the plant. So we discovered, post-Scoping Study, that there could be significant cost savings by reducing the energy by making our own sulfuric acid.

It’s not a story we’ve told, but that’s why we’re still running with the sulphate process, because we’re trying to optimise all of these things. It’s like a whole lot of balls in the air, and we need to make the right strategic choice.”

The very positive strategic update:

“With so many balls in the air, Jones admits there is a certain need to narrow Impact’s focus.

In addition to Lake Hope, the company owns the Broken Hill and Commonwealth projects in NSW, the Doonia, Dalgaranga and Narryer projects in WA, and a package of regional assets — Martup, Dinninup and Mineral Hill — in south-west WA.

All will be divested to provide Impact with the resources and funding necessary to advance Lake Hope and the one other project the company plans to retain, the Arkun-Beau-Jumbo Project in WA.

Letting go of MJ’s deeply personal BH project will have hurt hard. It may well still be fully analysed for the XPLOR data outcomes, and might be test-drilled, but BH is seriously difficult stratigraphy and there would be no guarantees.

The Arkun Plan:

In early January, Impact announced the discovery of a “very significant” rare earth anomaly at Arkun’s Hyperion prospect, based on earlier soil sampling activities which identified anomalism covering at least 3km-square and measuring up to 5,880 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides and yttrium (TREO+Y).

In its announcement, Impact said the new anomalies add to a larger 10km-long anomaly previously found at the Horseshoe prospect some 25km to the east, while another TREO+Y anomaly has been discovered at the Swordfish prospect, 10km south-east of Hyperion.

A separate announcement later the same month heralded a major copper soil anomaly at Arkun’s Caligula prospect, which Impact said at the time is testament to “the significant exploration potential for a range of battery and strategic metals at the Arkun Project.”

“Rare earths and copper are the two dominant things there. We do have some gold anomalies, there are some lithium anomalies, but I think those are a bit of a furphy. Nobody’s really found any significant lithium yet out in the wheatbelt. We might be the first, but we’re not making a big deal of it,” Jones says.

“But Arkun is a very grassroots project with many geochemical anomalies. We’ve done two airborne geophysical surveys and lots of geochemistry. We’re still collecting samples now, so it’s a very active project.”

For that work to continue, however, Impact needs to continue its pursuit of what Jones calls “a rationalisation of its portfolio.” Already, the company has trimmed non-essential portions of the Arkun-Beau-Jumbo Project to save on rents and rates, and has a similar plan for certain other projects.

“We’ve been holding onto ground for quite a while and even though it’s cheap exploration, we just don’t have the resources to do it,” Jones adds.

“So we’re trying to maximise the return on the money we’ve already spent with the limited team that we’ve got, and we’ll see if we can do some deals.”

The bigger picture pathway forward:

Asked where he’d like to see Impact in 6 months’ time, Jones is clear that he wants to be making good headway on the Lake Hope PFS, which is on track for completion by the end of this year, and which should shed more light on the processing opportunities available.

Similarly, getting HPA products from Lake Hope into testwork with potential offtake clients is just as important.

“In this space, mining is no problem. We’ve got the deposit, it shouldn’t be an issue. There are always challenges in scaling up a new metallurgical process, but we’re talking about something simple and straightforward,” Jones says.

“It’s not bells and whistles and multiple reagents and all those sorts of things, so we don’t anticipate any trouble there. It’s a matter of then providing the product to the client at the end.”

There’s a lot of boots-on-the-ground commonsense commentary in all the above. So if there’s one of your personal favourite deposits about to be rationalised, then perhaps let it go. I’m letting Broken Hill go.

Moving on,

Ice