Tertiary Minerals

Lassedalen Fluorspar project

The Lassedalen fluorspar deposit was mined on a small scale during World War II when it was developed to a depth of 40m below surface and fluorspar was mined from a 700m long drift for use in aluminium smelting.

The mine was dewatered in the late 1970s by Norsk Hydro A/S when drilling was carried out from both surface and underground. Norsk Hydro defined a fluorspar “reserve” reported at that time to be “well over 1,000,000 tonnes of (contained) fluorspar concentrate”. Whilst based on a significant drilling and underground exploration programme, this historical “reserve” estimate is not compliant with any current resource or reserve code and should therefore only be used to indicate that the tonnage potential of this deposit is significant.

Fluorspar mineralisation at Lassedalen occurs in steeply dipping veins and as disseminations within an east-west striking fault breccia that is reportedly up to 8km long and generally between 15 and 30m wide, but up to 80m wide in places. Economically important fluorspar can be followed more or less continuously for at least 1km where the largest veins reach a width of 10-13m for a distance of 200—250m along strike. The fluorspar content in these veins is reportedly rich, varying between 40-80%.

The Company holds exploration permits at Lassedalen that grant exploration rights to claimable minerals (those with a specific gravity of 5g/cm3 or greater) and the Company has secured exploration rights for non-claimable minerals (which includes fluorspar, specific gravity 3.2) from private land and mineral owners under new mining legislation introduced earlier this year.

The fluorspar exploration rights have been granted by the Norwegian Directorate of Mining and will expire at the end of 2016. There are no other ongoing costs to maintain the rights and no specific expenditure obligations.

This project has complementary characteristics to the Company’s Storuman Fluorspar Project where a positive scoping study has been completed.

Where Storuman is a large low-grade deposit mineable by open-pit; Lassedalen is potentially much higher grade and would need to be mined by underground methods due to the surrounding steep topography. Subject to mineral processing testwork results, the Company believes the Lassedalen project may have potential to supply metallurgical-grade fluorspar for the European steel industry, a grade of fluorspar not targeted by the Storuman project, as well as acid-grade fluorspar.

The deposit is less than 1km from highway E134 and approximately 40km from the nearest Norwegian port. It is well placed for European export markets as well as an important established market within southern Norway where fluorspar is used to manufacture aluminium fluoride for use in the large hydro-powered aluminium smelting and refining industry.

The Company is planning a programme of exploration at Lassedalen in order to define Mineral Resources and evaluate the metallurgical characteristics of the fluorspar mineralisation.