Latitude 66’s Kuusamo Schist Belt (KSB) gold-cobalt project in Finland will participate in a EUR €5 million (A$8 million) geophysics research scheme funded by the European Union that will focus on deep mineralisation.
The initiative aims to focus efforts on three key regions that include Lattitude project area, together with areas of the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal and the Kalahari Copper Belt in Namibia.
The Kuusamo Schist Belt is home to Latitude's flagship project, KSB, which currently has a significant gold and cobalt resource – predominantly in the northern section of its grounds - of 7.2 million tonnes at 2.7 grams per tonne gold and 0.08 per cent cobalt, totalling 650,000 ounces of gold and 5840 tonnes of cobalt.
The funding, which Latitude believes will be split about evenly across all three study areas, will be predominantly spent on developing and refining geophysical technologies to help uncover critical raw minerals deposits buried deeper in the Earth's crust.
Specific to Latitude’s KSB project, the funds will be predominantly directed towards testing for deeper conductive plates below the company’s northern leases that already host a substantial defined gold and cobalt resource.
The “Unified Novel Deep Exploration for Critical Ore Discovery” project - dubbed UNDERCOVER - falls under the EUR €93.5 billion (A$152 billion Horizon Europe research program.
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key program for research and innovation into meeting global climate change and sustainable development goals while boosting the EU’s economic competitiveness and growth.
The initiative brings together 16 parties each with relevant expertise from across Europe, Namibia and Canada, including government geological surveys, universities, research institutions, exploration companies such as Latitude, industrial conglomerates and small-to-medium enterprises.
Significantly for Latitude, the UNDERCOVER project is being coordinated by the Geological Survey of Finland, which is the driving force behind the initiative to access EU funding for deeper exploration, particularly on its home turf.
The company says KSB’S involvement in the UNDERCOVER project has endorsed Latitude’s decision to explore the area and highlights its importance to the Finnish Geological Survey (GTK) as a highly prospective site for deep exploration. To emphasise the point, the Geological Survey of Finland will also host the kick off meeting in Kuusamo in February next year.
Latitude 66’s managing director Grant Coyle said: “The Company is looking forward to working alongside GTK to support the EU’s UNDERCOVER project and drive accelerated exploration efforts across the highly prospective KSB region. The UNDERCOVER grant funding awarded under the Horizon Europe program vindicates our view on the upside potential at the KSB Project.”
Latitude recently completed an 18-hole, 2197m diamond drilling program in the southern parts of its leases in a bid to lift the project’s overall resource. While it awaits the assays from the campaign, two of the holes are also being used to run down-hole electromagnetics to help a geophysics team. This work will allow the company to test for further conductive plates.
The UNDERCOVER project aligns well with the EU's broader goals of securing a sustainable supply of raw materials critical for industries ranging from renewable energy to electronics. Given the insatiable demand for the metals and increasing geopolitical unrest, a secure supply of these vital commodities has become a top priority for the western world.
Latitude’s contribution to the collaborative effort would appear to strengthen the importance of its KSB project as a future supplier to Europe and highlights the geological opportunity the ASX-listed company has before it.
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By James Pearson
