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Canadian Exploration Ni-Cu-PGM

With the acquisition in May 2022 of the Alotta and Lorraine claims, located adjacent to Pivotal’s existing Midrim and Laforce claims, the Company has now consolidated its position in the Belleterre-Angliers Greenstone Belt (BAGB) with a combined area of 157.4km2.

The BAGB is the youngest and southernmost greenstone belt in the Archean Superior Province of the Canadian Shield. This volcano-sedimentary belt is situated just north of the Grenville Front and south of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. The belt is divided into three parts known as the Baby, Lac des Bois, and Belleterre Groups. The northern part of the Baby Group consists of komatiitic basalts at the base, overlain by tholeiitic basalts that are in turn overlain by calc-alkali intermediate to felsic volcanic rocks and volcaniclastic sedimentary rocks. The southern part of the Baby Group and the Lac des Bois and Belleterre groups lack komatiitic rocks but include tholeiitic basalts and calc-alkalic volcanic rocks.

PGM-Ni-Cu mineralisation forms during emplacement of the intrusive phases when sulphur become immiscible in the magma forming its own liquid that concentrates within the magmatic conduit, or chonolith, or within the footwall immediate to the intrusion. PGMs have an extremely high affinity for this sulfide liquid and are efficiently scavenged and concentrated from the magma.

The Midrim prospect is hosted within a gabbroic intrusion approximately 330m long and 85m wide; mineralisation is mainly chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, millerite, violarite, pentlandite and pyrite. Some 32,000m of historic drilling has been conducted within the claims. Existing deposits at this project represent important proof of concept that the gabbroic intrusion systems are fertile and productive for formation of high-grade, high nickel-tenor magnetic Ni-Cu-PGE mineralisation.

Activities undertaken at Midrim and Laforce in 2021 to better understand their potential, including a low-frequency heli-borne VTEM survey followed by a ground-floor fixed loop EM, have further increased the Company’s confidence in these assets. The Company now has several drill ready targets as well as a detailed and structured exploration programme.

The Alotta Project is centred in Baby Township, Témiscamingue County, Quebec approximately 25 km east of Lake Timiskaming and the Quebec-Ontario provincial border. The Alotta Project is situated SW of Midrim on similar linear chonolithic gabbroic bodies.

The Lorraine licences, located in the south of the Belleterre-Angliers Greenstone Belt, contain the historically mined Lorraine nickel mine (producing 661,480 tonnes with recovered grades of 0.38% nickel, 0.90% copper, 0.62 g/t gold, with PGMs, silver, PGMs and cobalt being reported but amounts not specified, between 1964-68. Charlton, 2003), the Blondeau nickel deposit (250,000 tonnes at 0.45% Ni and 0.45% Cu. Hinzer, 1985. GM 43679) and the Kelly Lake PGM-Cu-Ni deposit licences (non-compliant historic resource of 1.4 Mt at 1.3 g/t Pt+Pd, 0.7% Ni %, and 0.7% Cu; Globex Mining Press Release, 2017). The gabbro intrusions within the licences are thus demonstrated to be fertile and capable of producing sulphide accumulations.

A 2019 VTEM survey revealed a number of discrete, high conductance bodies, in the vicinity of, or along strike of known mineralisation, or coincident with historical Ni-Cu sulphide drilling intersections. To date, the majority of these have not been tested or were tested for other commodities, and these remain prospective.

NEXT STEPS

The Company is currently planning a phased exploration programme, focused on high priority targets with further surface geochemistry work and high impact drilling.