Marquee Resources Ltd. will acquire the historic Tungsten Mountain project in Nevada, US, expanding its critical minerals portfolio during a period of sharply rising global prices.
To fund the acquisition and kickstart exploration, the company has launched a major capital raising campaign to pull in up to AU$3.2 million through a share placement and entitlement offer. The company will issue 436.6 million shares at an issue price of 0.5 cents per share to raise AU$2.2 million.
In conjunction with the placement, the company intends to undertake a entitlement issue of one share for every five existing shares held by eligible shareholders at an issue price of 0.5 cents each.
The Tungsten Mountain Property, located in Churchill County, covers a brownfields mine that has been idle for decades.
Historical records show the site produced nearly 7,000 dry tonnes of ore at a remarkably high average grade of 1.16 per cent tungsten trioxide.
A non-JORC historical estimate from 1973 also indicates mineable resources of 250,000 tonnes at 1 per cent tungsten trioxide.
Marquee Executive Chairman Charles Thomas said: “Tungsten Mountain gives Marquee exposure to a genuine brownfield scheelite skarn in Nevada, with historical underground development, historical production and clear near-mine validation target.
“The immediate work program is deliberately focused on verification, mapping, sampling and drilling to determine whether the historical mineralisation can be progressed toward a modern JORC-compliant resource pathway.”
Tungsten is highly prized as a critical mineral, boasting the highest melting point of any metal and a hardness second only to diamond.
The acquisition arrives at a critical geopolitical juncture; the US has not mined tungsten commercially since 2015, and dominant producer China recently slapped export controls on selected tungsten items, driving global prices to nearly US$3,000 per metric ton unit this month.
Marquee plans to send geological consultants to the site within weeks to digitise old datasets and conduct ultraviolet lamp surveys to trace the scheelite ore.
The upcoming diamond drilling campaign will target deep and along-strike extensions of the known vein structures, which have previously yielded exceptional grab samples up to 7.32 per cent tungsten trioxide.
The company also confirmed it will actively evaluate its eligibility for US government grants under the Defense Production Act.
