Stavely Minerals Acquires Promising Hawkstone Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project

About Stavely Minerals

Stavely Minerals (ASX: SVY) is a mineral exploration company focused on making significant greenfields discoveries in Australia. The company has a strong portfolio of exploration projects in Victoria and Western Australia targeting gold, copper, nickel and other commodities.

Stavely Minerals has a market capitalization of around $33 million and solid cash reserves of $1.7 million as of June 2023. The company is led by an experienced management team with a track record of exploration success.

Hawkstone Project Overview

Stavely Minerals has announced the completion of the acquisition of the Hawkstone Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project from Chalice Mining Limited.

The Hawkstone Project covers approximately 600 sq km in the highly prospective West Kimberley region of Western Australia. It sits along strike from the Merlin nickel-copper-cobalt discovery made by Buxton Resources and IGO on their adjacent ground.

Merlin is considered a high-tenor magmatic nickel sulfide discovery, with drill intercepts containing up to 8.14% nickel, 5.26% copper and 0.69% cobalt. The mineralization is hosted by the Ruins Dolerite unit.

Importantly, the Hawkstone Project captures around 30km of potential easterly strike continuation of this same Ruins Dolerite unit. This makes the ground acquired by Stavely Minerals highly prospective for finding repetitions of the Merlin style nickel-copper-cobalt mineralization.

In addition, the Hawkstone Project covers large areas of the fractionated Mondooma and Lennard Granites. These granites are associated with lithium-bearing pegmatites, as evidenced by the presence of numerous old tin-tungsten-tantalum mining areas within the project area. So there is good lithium exploration potential as well.

Gravity Survey Provides Crucial Early-Stage Data

Concurrent with the completion of the Hawkstone acquisition, Stavely Minerals has flown an extensive airborne gravity gradiometer survey across the new project area.

The survey was conducted by specialist contractor Xcalibur Aviation and comprised approximately 3,700 line-km flown at a tight 200m line spacing.

The stated purpose of collecting this high quality geophysical data so early in the project’s life is to aid target generation beneath the shallow cover that dominates the landscape.

Gravity gradiometry data is particularly useful for ‘seeing through’ cover material and defining the architecture of the underlying bedrock. When integrated with magnetics data, key information can be gleaned regarding lithological variations, structural grain and alteration - all critical ingredients for vectoring in on areas prospective for nickel-copper-cobalt mineralization associated with mafic intrusives.

According to Stavely’s management, the results of this survey - expected within 4-6 weeks - will provide a crucial early-stage dataset to shape the next phase of exploration across this exciting new project area.

Attractive Acquisition Terms

In summary, Stavely Minerals has acquired a 600 sq km strategic exploration project, neighboring a significant nickel-copper-cobalt discovery, for what appears to be a modest upfront acquisition cost.

Total consideration paid to vendor Chalice Mining was $1.4 million, made up of:

• $50,000 cash deposit
• $950,000 in Stavely Minerals shares (10,633,534 shares)
• $350,000 in performance rights (3,917,618 rights), converting to shares if exploration tenure is renewed
• $50,000 in performance rights (559,659 rights), converting to shares if exploration tenure is renewed

By deferring much of the acquisition cost to performance milestones, Stavely Minerals has kept initial outlays low and incentivized the vendor to assist with progressing the necessary tenure extensions.

This looks like an opportunistic purchase with strong upside potential.

Next Steps

In the coming weeks, Stavely Minerals will be closely analyzing the processed data from the recently completed gravity survey over the Hawkstone Project.

Identification of priority areas from this work will lead into heritage surveys and initial validation through ground-based techniques such as surface geochemistry and mapping.

Drill testing of targets is likely to follow later this year or early next year, depending on lead times for heritage clearances.

Conclusion

Stavely Minerals has aggressively expanded its project portfolio into the Kimberley region, securing an exciting nickel-copper-cobalt opportunity neighboring a significant new discovery at Merlin.

Early acquisition of airborne gravity data provides substantial leverage, allowing Stavely’s technical team to rapidly advance the targeting process beneath cover rocks.

The terms of the Hawkstone acquisition look favorable, with minimal upfront payment required and success-based performance payments.

With drilling now a possibility later this year, investors have an opportunity to position themselves in SVY ahead of material exploration news flow from this high-quality new project.