Overview
Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) is an exploration and development mining company focusing on discovering and developing new resource projects within Australia. Lake Hope, a recent transformational acquisition by the company and its current flagship asset, is a high-purity alumina (HPA) project in Impact’s home territory of Western Australia, a tier-one jurisdiction. This advanced-stage project allows the company to fast-track the asset toward development and puts the company firmly on the road to production and increasing shareholder value.
HPA is a high-value product with various uses in several industries that are key to the transition to a low-carbon world. Its main uses are in LED lighting, micro-LED screens, and ceramic-coated separators in lithium-ion batteries. Both these markets are forecast to grow dramatically over the next decade, and a looming supply shortage is predicted for 2026. HPA is also necessary for producing synthetic sapphire and scratch-resistant glass. With these ever-widening applications for HPA, demand for this resource is expected t
o reach $4.79 billion in 2027 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4 percent
Lake Hope is the company’s current focus as it moves towards production, and where a very shallow, high-grade resource of HPA precursor material has been identified in the top two meters of a dry salt lake. The deposit has unique physical and chemical properties that will allow for inexpensive digging and mining, with transportation to a processing facility off-site in an established industrial area, enabling the acceleration of production.
Impact is currently focused on lodging a Mining Lease Application. The company aims to bring Lake Hope, which contains almost 1 million tonnes of potential HPA, into production when the forecast average price for 4N HPA (99.99 percent AL203) and related products is about US$20,000 per tonne. The ‘4N’ designation indicates the purity grade, making it suitable for high-tech end uses.
In June 2023, Impact announced a maiden mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 3.5 million tonnes at 25.1 percent alumina (Al2O3) for a contained 880,000 tonnes of alumina. The company also received heritage clearances for the entire Lake Hope deposit further de-risking the project and providing another critical component in the company’s application for a mining lease.
Impact released the results of a scoping study based on realistic production and capital expenditure estimates for the company’s Lake Hope High Purity Alumina (HPA) Project. The study indicated Lake Hope's potential to be one of, if not the lowest-cost producer of HPA globally, possibly by a significant margin of up to 50 percent.
The company received a significant research and development refund of $753,000 from its exploration activities completed in the financial year ending June 30th, 2022. The refund brought Impact’s cash balance to more than $4 million after a successful capital raising which was strongly supported by the company’s two major German shareholders. The company is well funded to finance the pre-feasibility study at the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina project and exploration activities at the Arkun battery minerals project.
Impact Minerals was also one of the inaugural cohort of seven companies selected to be part of the prestigious BHP Xplor program. BHP Xplor, an accelerator program introduced by BHP in August 2022, is designed to help provide participants with the opportunity to accelerate their growth and the potential to establish a long-term partnership with BHP and its global network of partners.
In addition to funding, the BHP Xplor program allows Impact to gain access to a network of internal and external experts to help guide development in the company's technical, business and operational aspects.
The BHP Xplor funding has been used to identify new target areas for copper and other energy metals around the Broken Hill area in New South Wales, eastern Australia, where Impact has been quietly adding to its ground position for several years.
Additionally, the company is exploring its large Arkun battery metals project, also in Western Australia. The company has completed a significant exploration campaign at its Arkun project, reporting encouraging results of nickel, copper, PGMs and lithium-caesium-tantalum. Targets are currently being defined with the aim of drill testing in early 2024.
“In trying to reduce the risk, it’s the case nowadays where you need to take a scientific approach to what you’re doing. One of the big changes in the industry over the past ten years is that it’s now a lot easier and cheaper to generate a great amount of data. So, we’ve been recognized for our technical excellence,” said Dr. Mike Jones, Managing Director at Impact Minerals, in an interview.
A strong management team with over 50 years of combined industry experience leads the company. With a mining and exploration geology degree, Jones launched a long career consulting and leading mining organizations. Peter Unsworth, the non-executive chairman, has more than 35 years of experience in multiple financial sectors, such as securities industries and wealth management. Paul Ingram, a non-executive director, has led several mining companies since 2003. Impact Minerals has the experience and expertise to lead the company to success.
Management Team
Peter Unsworth - Non-executive Chairman
Peter Unsworth, formerly a chartered accountant, has over 35 years of experience in the corporate finance, investment and securities industries and a wealth of management experience with public and private companies. A former executive director with a leading Western Australian stockbroking company, Unsworth has been a director of several public exploration and mining companies. He recently completed a long time serving as chairman of the Western Australian Government-owned Gold Corporation (operator of The Perth Mint). Unsworth is the founding chairman of Impact Minerals.
Dr. Mike Jones - Managing Director
Dr. Mike Jones is the founding managing director of Impact Minerals Limited, which was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in November 2006. Reporting to the board of directors, he is responsible for the company's performance as it moves towards production at its Lake Hope High Purity Alumina Project and also for implementing strategies to explore and maximize the value of the company's other extensive tenement holdings.
Since listing, he has helped raise more than $60 million to help fund the exploration of Impact’s projects and managed the company through significant adverse events, including the global financial crisis and the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which affected Impact’s considerable investment in the uranium sector, a five-year global downturn in the mining sector and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul Ingram - Non-executive Director
Paul Ingram is a geologist with extensive experience managing major mineral exploration programs for several publicly listed companies and has been involved in the mining sector for over thirty years. He has designed and implemented innovative techniques for exploration in remote areas and has managed projects in countries throughout Australia and East Asia. Ingram has been a director of the following listed companies in the past three years:
Dr Frank Bierlein - Non-executive Director
Dr. Frank Bierlein is a geologist with 30 years of experience as a consultant, researcher, lecturer and industry professional. Bierlein has held exploration and generative geology management positions with QMSD Mining Co Ltd, Qatar Mining, Afmeco Australia and Areva NC, and consulted for, among others, Newmont Gold, Resolute Mining, Goldfields International, Freeport McMoRan, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is currently a non-executive director of PNX Metals Ltd. He was previously a non-executive director of Gold Australia NL and chaired the advisory board of a Luxembourg-based private equity fund between 2014 and 2021.
Bernard Crawford - Company Secretary
Bernard Crawford is a finance and governance professional with over 25 years of experience in the resources industry in Australia and overseas. He has held various finance, governance and management positions with NYSE, TSX and ASX-listed companies. Crawford holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia and a Master of Business Administration from London Business School. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Governance Institute of Australia.
Figure 1: Location map of Las Alteras uranium project