King River wraps up WA critical minerals project sale

King River Resources has wrapped up the sale of its Speewah critical minerals project in Western Australia’s rugged Kimberley to Northern Territory resources firm Tivan Limited. The sale agreement was initiated two years ago for a mix of cash and shares worth $20 million. 

The deal was restructured in February last year, resulting in a $2.4m payment to King River last December.

In February 2023, King River revealed it had signed a binding term sheet with Tivan for the sale of 100 per cent of the issued capital of King River subsidiary Speewah Mining, which owns the Speewah vanadium and fluorite project, 100 kilometres south of Wyndham.

King River remains a significant shareholder in Tivan and supports its proposed development strategy for the Speewah project.

The Speewah fluorite deposit represents Australia’s only JORC-compliant fluorspar resource, which is a potential source of the vital halide fluorine.

It is considered world-class in terms of scale and grade, with a style of mineralogy capable of supporting high recovery rates.

Additionally, the Speewah vanadium deposit contains Australia’s biggest vanadium-in-titanomagnetite resource and is one of the largest globally.

The consideration initially nutted out comprised $1m in Tivan shares, being 100 million shares at a deemed issue price of 10 cents per share and $10m in staged cash payments.

In February last year, King River agreed with Tivan to restructure the terms of the final $5m consideration payable for the Speewah project, for which Tivan is currently pursuing a phased development approach.

The restructured terms provided for payments by instalment across the following 12 months, which significantly reduced Tivan’s near-term payment obligations.

King River received a $1.6m payment on July 8 and a $2.4m final payment on December 2, enabling Tivan to better direct its financial resources towards advancing the Speewah project last year.

As part of the restructure payment terms, the two parties agreed that if the value of the 100 million Tivan shares held by King River should fall to less than a value of $10m in shares on February 17, 2025 - based on Tivan’s preceding 30-day volume weighted average price leading up to February 17 - Tivan would issue additional shares to King River on the closing date.  

Tivan’s shares closed the trading day yesterday at 10 cents, the company’s lowest closing price across the preceding 30 days, which equated to a 30-day weighted average price above the required 10c level, so no additional shares were issued to King River.

The Tivan deal means King River can turn its attention to its Kurundi gold project near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, where it revealed last week it had achieved a series of eye-catching numbers up to 26 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from shallow drilling.

The phase two drilling program at Kurundi consisted of 36 reverse circulation holes for 2472 metres that aimed to find new mineralised structures and extensions up to 1.5km from the main workings at Kurundi. Drilling targeted beneath the main mineralised zone to follow up on previous high-grade hits.

Shallow infill drilling at the main zone kicked up the best results including a 3m section grading 11.9g/t gold and a 1m slice at 26g/t gold within a 7m interval going at 5.8g/t gold from a depth of 32m. The hole also confirmed a southerly plunge to the main structure, first identified in the November phase 1 drilling program.

Additional deeper drilling at the Kurundi Main prospect intercepted a gold-bearing structure with a hit of 11m grading 0.69g/t gold from 69m, including a 1m section assaying 3.39g/t gold.

The company had a healthy bank balance greater than $5.5m at the end of December and a slew of targets at its Northern Territory ground prospective for gold and copper.

With the price of gold booming at present, near $4570 (US$2900) per ounce and a cash balance to fund ample drilling, King River is well positioned to chase its golden dreams.

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