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Alba Minerals Ltd
Symbol AA
Shares Issued 58,782,258
Close 2019-02-20 C$ 0.07
Market Cap C$ 4,114,758
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Alba Minerals talks up Noram investment

2019-02-21 09:44 ET - News Release

Mr. Sandy MacDougall reports

ALBA INVESTMENT IN NORAM UPDATE

Alba Minerals Ltd. currently holds an investment of 3.8 million common shares in the share capital of Noram Ventures Inc. The company is incredibly pleased with the release of an updated resource estimate, which includes the two phases of drilling completed during fiscal 2018.

The following is excerpted from Noram's news release dated Feb. 21, 2019, and available in full on Noram's SEDAR profile.

Noram Ventures has released a new inferred resource estimate for the Zeus lithium property, which is adjacent to Albemarle's lithium brine producer in Clayton Valley, Nevada. At a lithium cut-off of 900 parts per million, the new inferred resource is 145 million tonnes at a grade of 1,145 parts per million lithium, more than 8.5 times the previously reported estimate.

In 2018, Noram completed two additional phases of drilling (the phase 2 and phase 3 drill programs), which are newly incorporated into the new inferred resource calculation. In total, 60 drill holes have been included within the resource area. The new inferred resource estimate is 145 million tonnes at a grade of 1,145 parts per million lithium at a cut-off grade of 900 parts per million Li (please see the attached table). Sensitivity analyses at 300 parts per million Li cut-off and 600 parts per million Li cut-off are also given in the attached table. While the updated National Instrument 43-101 report is not yet finalized, it is expected within the next 45 days and the company's qualified person (Bradley C. Peek) feels sufficiently certain that these preliminary calculated values are reasonable and will not vary significantly from the final NI 43-101 report values.

         INFERRED RESOURCES FOR THE ZEUS LITHIUM DEPOSIT, CLAYTON VALLEY, NEVADA

                                                 Cut-off grade 
                                 300 ppm Li              600 ppm Li    900 ppm Li mineral
                       sensitivity analysis    sensitivity analysis     resource estimate

Tonnes (thousands)                  330,670                 251,526               145,168
Grade (ppm)                             858                     984                 1,145
Contained Li (kg)               283,796,297             247,569,218           166,238,452

This expanded resource estimate for the Zeus lithium deposit is 8.5 times the tonnage of the previous resource reported in 2017 as well as at a higher grade (the previous inferred resource reported 17 million tonnes at 1,060 parts per million Li (see Noram press release dated Nov. 21, 2017). At a cut-off grade of 900 parts per million, the grade of 1,145 parts per million lithium corresponds to a lithium carbonate equivalent grade of 0.61 weight per cent Li2CO3 and the contained lithium corresponds to 880,000 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent (one kilogram of Li equals 5.323 kilograms of Li2CO3). Current lithium carbonate (purity of 99.5 per cent) prices in China are $12,500 to $14,500 per tonne (as of Feb. 9, 2019).

The inferred resource reported here is considered an update of the inferred resource reported in Peek and Spanjers (2017) and was estimated using a block model as well as the inverse distance squared method for the calculations.

Higher-grade (greater than 1,000 parts per million Li) material is open at depth and to the southeast, with the property boundary one kilometre to two kilometres away from the currently defined inferred resource.

The deposit is within playa lake clays of the Miocene-Pliocene (2.5 million years old) Esmeralda formation. Initial mineralogy studies on the clays at surface and in drill core indicate the following favourable features: (i) 35 per cent to 65 per cent of the material is detrital gravel and sand, and can be separated from the clay minerals during processing using sieves and cyclones. Separating this material effectively increases the grade twofold before leach treatment of the clays; (ii) the clay minerals are non-refractory and can be successfully treated with sulphuric acid to extract lithium; (iii) approximately 5 per cent of the material is calcium carbonate and may be separated along with the other coarse-grained material. This can significantly reduce the amount of acid necessary to extract lithium during processing.

Two other favourable indicators come from the assay ICP geochemical data, as follows: (i) there is marked sodium enrichment within 10 metres of the surface, which is believed to reflect residual salts and suggests that some of the lithium resource may be soluble in water alone, as is the case elsewhere in the Esmeralda formation; (ii) there is a notable enrichment in rubidium at the hundreds of ppm level. Rubidium, like lithium, is an alkali element and may be recoverable during processing.

In the coming months, Noram intends to conduct a preliminary economic assessment study aimed at a detailed understanding of the geological and mineralogical controls on mineralization in order to determine the most cost-effective, efficient and environmentally friendly methods of lithium extraction, with the goal of producing a marketable lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide product.

The Noram management team commented: "If you want to develop a lithium deposit, Clayton Valley is high on the list of places to do so, with Albemarle's Silver Peak lithium brine operations next door. We note that the Tesla lithium battery Gigafactory is 220 kilometres down the road and is one of at least 10 lithium battery factories recently built or under construction for the global auto sector. We aim to work with our neighbours in Clayton Valley, under the guidance of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Nevada Bureau of Mines, to develop these lithium resources to support the future of green energy."

The mineral resource estimates in this press release use the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) standards on mineral resources and reserves definitions and guidelines. According to the CIM definitions, a mineral resource must be potentially economic in that it must be "in such form and quantity and of such grade or quality that it has reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction."

The technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Bradley C. Peek, MSc, a certified professional geologist who is independent of Noram Ventures and a qualified person with respect to Noram's Clayton Valley lithium project as defined under NI 43-101.

We seek Safe Harbor.

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