공고 • Oct 04
New Age Metals Inc. Announces Rhodium Assay Program for River Valley Palladium Project Near Sudbury, Ontario
New Age Metals Inc. announced its Fourth Quarter 2020 program for the River Valley Palladium Project near Sudbury, Ontario. The primary focus of the program is a Phase 1 of a multi-phase rhodium assay program designed to prove-up the world's most valuable metal as a payable component of River Valley. Rhodium Market: Rhodium (Rh), one of the six Platinum Group Metals, is a silver-white metallic element that is highly reflective and strongly resistant to corrosion. Rh's primary use is in catalytic converters of automobiles, where it reduces the amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) exhaust gases emitted into the atmosphere. In 2019, almost 90% of rhodium demand was from the auto-catalyst sector. Rh is a very special metal in terms of its performance in converting NOx into harmless gases, and will continue to be the metal of choice for the control of NOx. Mined supply of Rh in 2019 was over 750,000oz and recycled supply was 315,000oz, resulting in a deficit of approximately 50,000oz. Rh supply is inelastic to demand for various reasons: Rh content in the earth's crust is extremely rare, and the metal is mined as a by-product of platinum and palladium mining or nickel mining. There is no such thing as a primary Rh mine, and the major producers are all located in South Africa. South Africa produces over 85% of the global Rh supply annually, with majority of this supply being generated by the mining companies listed below (Rh production listed as a percentage of overall mining production): Sibanye Stillwater (2019 Rh production, 7% overall contributed 22% of revenue); Anglo Platinum (H12020 Rh production, 7.5% overall contributed 34% of revenue); Impala Platinum (H12020 Rh production, 6.5% overall contributed 25% of revenue) Rhodium Assay Program: Rhodium (Rh), the world's most valuable metal (USD 12,000/oz as of September 28, 2020), is present with palladium and platinum at the River Valley Deposit. However, the amount of existing Rh assays is relatively small and their spatial distribution limited, due to the high cost of assaying. The highest-grade rhodium assay is 0.873 g/t Rh for a core sample from the Lismer North Zone. Rhodium is included in the 2001, 2012, 2018 and 2019 Mineral Resource Estimates. Rhodium grades in the 2019 Mineral Resource Estimate (Table 1) are based on Rh assay data for 7,471 drill core samples and 2,641 channel samples, for a total of 10,112 assays. Of these, 8,268 core and channel sample Rh assays records are for the Dana North Zone, 1,338 core and channel sample Rh assay records for the Dana South Zone, and 506 core sample assays for the Lismer Zones: there are no Rh assays available in the database for the Pardo, Pine, Banshee, Lismer Ridge, Varley, Azen, and Razor zones. Clearly, the Rh assay data distribution is highly concentrated at Dana North. Furthermore, the rhodium mineral hollingworthite (Rh, Pt, Pd) AsS has been identified during mineralogical and metallurgical testwork studies of drill core from Dana North and Dana South. Although included in the 2019 Mineral Resource Estimate for the River Valley Palladium deposit, Rh was excluded in the 2019 Preliminary Economic Assessment as payable metal in the Net Smelter Return estimates. In addition, a relatively small amount of additional Rh assay data (337 analyses) are available for core samples analyzed during an academic research project and for surface grab samples (158) assayed during exploration programs. The highest grades were 0.372 g/t Rh for the core and 0.309 g/t Rh for the surface grab samples. However, these data cannot be used directly for Mineral Resource Estimation purposes. The Rhodium Assay Program for Fourth Quarter 2020 is to be based on re-assaying available drill core samples for Rh. The drill holes to be sampled will be carefully selected from representative drill cross-sections of priority zones, primarily Pine Zone and possibly Dana South and Lismer North. Samples from mineralized core intervals above the lower cut-off grade and adjacent material are to be submitted to an appropriate laboratory for PGM assay with enhanced detection limits. In addition to Rh (and palladium platinum and gold), the minor PGM ruthenium (Ru) and iridium (Ir) will also be assayed. The Fourth Quarter 2020 work will be Phase 1 of a multi-phase program. Pending results and progress, the follow-up phases of work will include more sampling and assaying and mineralogical and metallurgical testwork, in order to ultimately prove-up rhodium as a payable metal for the River Valley Project.