US government invests $9.25m in Cornwall tungsten project
It's to accelerate progress to mining
Strategic Minerals, an international mineral exploration and production company, has announced that the U.S. Department of War has invested US$9.25m of funding in its wholly owned subsidiary Cornwall Resources Limited, to significantly accelerate the Redmoor tungsten-copper-tin project.
The investment reflects U.S. Government support for the development of a secure and resilient allied tungsten supply and recognises Redmoor’s potential importance to U.S. and allied advanced manufacturing, defence and critical minerals supply chains.
Together with the company’s existing cash resources and other grant funding opportunities, the investment will allow CRL to accelerate beyond the previous pre-feasibility study milestone, with a new target of the completion of a full definitive feasibility study as the final economic study.
The investment will support an engineering programme consisting of:
ongoing resource infill and expansion drilling, as well as geotechnical and metallurgical drilling, and other site investigations for feasibility studies
Mineral Resource Estimate updates and subsequent Reserve conversion
prefeasibility and definitive feasibility studies
metallurgical, processing and engineering studies
pre-site development activities aimed at fast tracking the route to underground mining.
Charles Manners, Strategic Minerals Executive Chairman, Charles Manners, said: “We believe the strengths and investment case for Redmoor have been clearly demonstrated through this investment.
“The U.S. Government has, in recent weeks, made significant investments to support allied, western world tungsten supply chains. We would like to thank the U.S. Government for this investment and we look forward to working with them through the Department for War, as we deliver this transformation project, with the aim of accelerating the development process for a new the UK tungsten mine capable of contributing significantly to this objective.”
Strategic Minerals Executive Director, Mark Burnett, said: “This programme provides further additionality to the Company’s plans to integrate and accelerate Redmoor through feasibility. Whilst not guaranteed, further UK domestic support for Redmoor is currently also being investigated.
“The Board would like to thank the CRL team for their hard work and dedication to Redmoor. Their work has positioned the project for this investment, including through an intense application and contracting process, and a recent trip to Philadelphia to discuss its project proposal in person with senior government officials.”
CRL Managing Director, Dennis Rowland, said: “The programme at Redmoor has expanded significantly in the last two years, through resource and economic sensitivity analysis updates and now delivering the largest, continuous, diamond drilling programme from surface drilled in Cornwall, designed to facilitate data collection for both of the project’s feasibility studies.
“It has been our intention to pursue all means to accelerate Redmoor towards full feasibility and then into mining, as quickly and efficiently as possible. This transformational funding to CRL will add significant momentum and support for Redmoor’s accelerated development. It helps eliminate funding uncertainty and risk between Redmoor’s feasibility development stages and positions the project for rapid development through integrated workstreams. We aim to deliver resource infill-PFS-DFS and other associated pre-site development tasks, within 32 months of the agreed programme initiation date, delivering Redmoor to a final investment decision for mining.”
“We would like to thank the Defense Industrial Base Consortium (“DIBC”) and consortium manager Advanced Technology International (“ATI”) contracting teams for their guidance and support throughout the application and contracting process. We look forward to working with ATI throughout the delivery of this sub-agreement. Whilst there is no guarantee of follow-on production funding, subject to the proper completion of the programme’s milestones, we further look forward to potential discussions on follow-on funding support for mine development at Redmoor.
“The Company would also like to thank the U.K. Government, through its Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade’s critical minerals team, for support throughout the application process.”