Thor Mining PLC (LON:THR) received a boost after the US Department of the Interior confirmed that tungsten has been included in the list of critical minerals.
Tungsten is the primary resource material at the company’s wholly-owned Pilot Mountain project in Nevada, which is also believed to contain copper and silver.
READ: Thor Mining funded for the foreseeable future, reaffirms focus on Pilot Mountain, Molyhil and Kapunda
The shares rose 10% on the news that tungsten had made it on to the list of mineral commodities deemed vital to the US’s security and economic prosperity.
The final list includes: Aluminium (bauxite), antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, cesium, chromium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite (natural), hafnium, helium, indium, lithium, magnesium, manganese, niobium, platinum group metals, potash, the rare earth elements group, rhenium, rubidium, scandium, strontium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, and zirconium.
Meanwhile, Thor said early indications from an internal scoping study suggest that the company should first focus upon the potential to develop an open-cut mining operation at the Desert Scheelite deposit with an objective of at least a medium term mining life.
#Tungsten is confirmed as a Critical Mineral on the final list of the US Department of the Interior's List of Critical Minerals 2018. Great news for @ThorMining and its Pilot Mountain tungsten project. #mining #exploration
— Blytheweigh (@Blytheweigh) May 24, 2018
"With Pilot Mountain situated in the State of Nevada, a long-standing mining jurisdiction, and in the secure operating environment of the United States, we have an excellent environment in which to develop this project,” said Mick Billing, the chairman of Thor Mining.
"Moreover, the size and scalability of Pilot Mountain; the opportunity the project provides to create real jobs and additional economic prosperity in-country; and the evident need for a national tungsten supply, places the project in a unique strategic position," Billing continued.
???????????????? ????????????????????????: Pilot Mountain
• Tungsten on final list of US DOI's List of Critical Minerals
Chairman, Mick Billing: "With Pilot Mountain situated in the State of Nevada [...] we have an excellent environment in which to develop this project"#THRhttps://t.co/ZOHwbYXDOr pic.twitter.com/7GWtynZZ81
— SI Capital (@sicapitaluk) May 24, 2018
"As we have expressed previously, the company is engaged in third party discussions with regard to its key tungsten projects and that interest is intensifying. We are balancing the need to make technical project progress with the obvious advantage of securing third party project level interest, whether that be project interest disposal, joint venture arrangements or off-take agreements," Billing explained.
"As always there is no assurance that specific technical project progress or commercial transactions can be concluded until any developments have been appropriately announced to market," he concluded.
Today, less than half of the mineral needs of U.S. #manufacturing are met from domestically-mined minerals, and we are 100% import-dependent for 20 key #minerals, many of which are critical to defense applications. #NDAA https://t.co/F9oMAx7Vmo
— NMA (@NationalMining) May 23, 2018