First Cobalt Corp revealed it had started drilling at its wholly-owned Iron Creek project in Idaho, USA, supporting its ambition to build a North American battery materials supply chain, with first drill results expected by the end of the fourth quarter this year.
The company, which owns a permitted hydrometallurgical refinery in Ontario, aims to drill over 4,000 meters (m) in a bid to double the current resource over the next two years amid stronger commodity prices and the acceleration of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in North America.
It has a C$2.5 million budget to fund the work, which will test extensions to the deposit, which is currently open to the east, to the west, and at depth.
"The company recently put in place the required financing to expand and recommission its battery materials refinery in Canada in Q4 2022," said Trent Mell, CEO of First Cobalt, in a statement.
READ: First Cobalt Corp fully focused on creating a North American cobalt supply chain
"Assuming drill results are as expected in 2021, we anticipate an even larger drill campaign in 2022, to fast-track our plans for domestic mine supply," he added.
Iron Creek is one of only two primary cobalt resource projects in the USA and the company's previous drill campaign expanded the resource along strike to over 900m and down-dip extensions to over 600m.
The project currently has a NI43-101 resource, outlining an indicated resource of 12.3 million pounds of contained cobalt and 29 million pounds of contained copper. The inferred resources show a further 12.7 million pounds of contained cobalt and 40 million pounds of contained copper.
A ground magnetic geophysical survey is planned for the 600-acre Redcastle property, which adjoins Iron Creek, which will also cover the Ruby cobalt-copper prospect to the east of the Iron Creek deposit.
In addition, metallurgical test work on cobalt ore continues to improve the processing system for concentration, noted the company.
It also highlighted that North American EV sales reached 325,000 units in the first half of 2021, up 128% year-on-year from 142,000 units in the corresponding period of 2020.
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com