Tiger Tasman is looking to leap into the ASX critical minerals space

Tiger Tasman Minerals is looking to be the newest battery, critical and industrial minerals explorer and developer to list on the ASX.

It has put together a package of five highly prospective projects in Queensland and Western Australia which give it exposure to battery/electrification metals such as lithium, copper, nickel, manganese, zinc and silver, previous metals and industrial minerals.

Notably, one of the projects already has an existing Inferred resource estimate for magnetite and silver alongside potential for base metals mineralisation.

These projects are the secret sauce that the company is hoping will entice investors to its initial public offering of between 25 million and 40 million shares priced at 20c to raise between $5.1m and $8m to fund systematic exploration and development.

Diversified portfolio

So just what are the projects that Tiger Tasman is bringing to play?

The company has a 100% stake in the Mount Minnie and Fraser Range projects in Western Australia and binding agreements to acquire the Copper Canyon and Crater projects in WA and the Iron Skarn Poly-Metallic project in Queensland.

Iron Skarn comprises a single exploration permit covering 12km2 in Queensland’s Barringha region about 40km south of Townsville which is located close to existing infrastructure including the main western railway line and the Flinders Highway, water and electricity supply.

Importantly, the project saw iron ore in the form of magnetite in hematite produced over a 14 year period from 1955 to 1969 by Northern Australia Cement to manufacture high density cement.

It was also subjected to gold exploration in the 1980s and early 1990s, which returned low levels of elevated gold and copper in stream sediment sampling, while a comprehensive geological evaluation was carried out by Australian Gold Holdings in 2007-8.

This included a ground magnetic survey which clearly delineated the extent of the magnetite skarn mineralization, at the intrusive contact of the Iron Glen Granodiorite and calc- silicate/schist/marble package.

Subsequent exploration led to the definition of a global magnetite resource of 1.92Mt grading 29.3% iron and 10.3 grams per tonne silver, and a silver resource of 4.82Mt at 12g/t silver for 1.87Moz of contained silver at Iron Glen.

Over in Western Australia, Copper Canyon comprises two exploration licence applications covering 512km2 in the Paterson Province, which is known to be highly prospective for gold-copper and base metal mineral systems.

The project is located north of the Telfer and Nifty deposits and south of Rio Tinto’s Winu copper-gold deposit, raising the potential for discoveries of structurally controlled mineralisation along the Waukarlycarly embayment and associated trending fault zones.

Very little exploration has been carried out apart from seismic work by Hunt Petroleum in 1996 and more recent seismic in 2002 and 2005.

The Fraser Range project is made up of two granted exploration licences covering 116km2 that are prospective for lithium and base metals while the 31km2 Mount Minnie project in the Ashburton Province could hold manganese mineralisation.

Fraser Range is located within the Mesoproterozoic-age Fraser Zone of the Albany-Fraser Orogen also described as the “Lithium Corridor”.

Lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites occur about 50km west of the tenement in and around the Bald Hill mine while further west a belt of LCT pegmatites extend from m the Mt Marion Lithium deposit south down to Norseman within outcropping greenstones.

Previous exploration had identified favourable greenstones hosts, banded iron formations or mafic units along with structural conduits for movement of fractionating LCT pegmatitic fluids out of the granites while geochemical surveying by the Geological Survey of Western Australia Report detected surface anomalies that may indicate additional buried mineralisation.

Meanwhile, Mt Minnie has favourable dolomite geology and structure similar to the Woodie Woodie deposit with visible manganese outcrops in the tenement area.

Historical rock chipping has also returned high manganese grades along a 4km long north-south trending corridor coinciding with an interface between sandstone and dolomite as well as dolomite and Wyloo Group Shales.

Crator is a single 43km2 exploration licence within the Earaheedy Basin that is prospective for base metals given its proximity to recent discoveries such as Chinook and the Earaheedy JV.

Targeted exploration plans

Tiger Tasman plans to use the funds raised from the IPO on its exploration plans over the next two years.

At Iron Skarn, the company plans to upgrade the Iron Glen Inferred resource to the higher confidence Indicated or Measured categories and carry out further detailed definition drilling, geochemical and metallurgical test work to support an increase in resource size.

It also plans to carry out additional studies to evaluate near term development options for a Dense Media Magnetite and silver concentrate mining operation as well as detailed geophysical, geochemical, target definition and drilling program on the Lead Belly prospect to define a JORC 2012 compliant resource.

Meanwhile, additional geophysical work will be carried out at Copper Canyon prior to selection of exploration targets for drilling based on identified prospective gravity edges on major structures similar to the Winu deposit on both the Eastern and Western edges of the tenements.

For the Fraser Range project, further aeromagnetic survey, soil/rock chip sampling and aircore drilling will be carried out to test potential LCT pegmatites zones under thick cover at the Northern tenement.

The company will carry out a desktop review of historical exploration data, geophysics, geochemical sampling to select nickel and base metal targets for a maiden drilling program in the Southern tenement.

Tiger Tasman’s exploration strategy for Mt Minnie includes ongoing compilation and interpretation of the historical exploration database before targeted geophysical surveying, mapping and sampling is carried out to identify targets for drilling. In parallel, sample collection for metallurgical and beneficiation test work will be undertaken.

Finally, future exploration at Crator will include detailed aeromagnetic survey, soil sampling and selection of drilling targets for a maiden drilling program.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Tiger Tasman Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

The post Tiger Tasman is looking to leap into the ASX critical minerals space appeared first on Stockhead.

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