Australian-based, Vietnamese nickel project developer, Blackstone Minerals has graduated to the US-based OTCQX Best Market, the highest market tier of OTC Markets, on the back of its progress in developing a significant “green” nickel business in Asia.
Managing Director, Scott Williamson said the graduation to OTCQX Best Market – on which 11,000 U.S. and global securities trade - has been powered by a rapid increase in Blackstone’s share price value and the company’s continuing success at the high-quality Ta Khoa Nickel-Copper-PGE Project in Vietnam.
The upgrade to the OTC premier league after only commencing trading on the OTCQB on 3 December 2020 is significant, with eligible companies required to meet high financial standards and other selective criteria.
Blackstone Minerals Managing Director, Scott Williamson said: “This important step in the growth aspirations for the company follows on from the significant interest shown by North American Investors.
“This step is part of the company’s strategy to raise awareness of the company’s Ta Khoa Nickel-Copper-PGE Project, located 160km west of Hanoi in the Son La Province of Vietnam.”
“Blackstone will continue to target the North American investor market, from which we are seeing growing enthusiasm for our integrated upstream and downstream processing strategy to produce green nickel products for the electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery industry.”
Blackstone has confirmed the Australian Securities Exchange will remain as its primary listing and the local market responded well to the OTC upgrade announcement, pushing the company’s shares up by five per cent in early trade.
The company has experienced significant recent exploration success in targeting higher grade massive sulphide vein deposits within the Ta Khoa district of Vietnam, including the promising King Snake prospect discovery.
Blackstone’s maiden drilling programme success at King Snake, located 1.5 kilometres north-east of the company’s processing facility, together with historic drill results have defined a strike length of over 800 metres which includes massive, semi-massive and disseminated sulphides.
It is currently undertaking a pre-feasibility study into the potential to mine the higher-grade massive sulphide deposits via a re-start of its existing 450,000 tonnes per annum Ban Phuc Concentrator.
Blackstone’s primary target for the offtake from such a development is leading Asian lithium-ion battery developers that are chasing key raw materials such as nickel, cobalt and manganese.
To support that aspiration, the company recently signed a non-binding letter of intent with leading global physical commodities trading group Trafigura Pte Ltd.
Under that agreement, Trafigura will supply specified quantities of nickel and cobalt products to Blackstone for its planned downstream production for the Lithium-ion battery industry.
The company says that Vietnam’s low-cost rich supply of renewable energy raw materials and well-defined infrastructure is attracting interest from potential manufacturers looking to develop facilities in-country.
With a high-quality source of material that is in growing demand from EV markets, a prime location on the doorstep of Asia’s leading battery factories and now an OTCQX Best Market listing, Blackstone looks like it is in the crouching position right now – just how far it will leap remains to be seen but it is ticking a lot of boxes along the way.
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