Alien Metals (AIM:UFO) said its joint venture partner West Coast Silver has been granted Prospecting Licence P47/2033, covering ground immediately adjacent to the Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease in Western Australia's Pilbara region.
The AIM-listed minerals explorer holds a 30% interest in the Elizabeth Hill Silver Project and a roughly 7% equity stake in West Coast Silver, giving it direct exposure to both the project and its operator.
Historical trenching at the new Elizabeth Hill West prospect returned 5 metres at 5.2 grams per tonne silver, 19,000 parts per million copper and 220 parts per billion palladium, while shallow drilling returned 1 metre at 11 grams per tonne silver from 65 metres depth.
Most earlier work at the site targeted nickel, copper and platinum group elements rather than silver, and only seven of 521 historical drill samples analysed for silver returned results above detection limits, leaving the target largely untested for the metal.
West Coast Silver plans to consolidate historical data, run field validation and targeted geophysics, then rank priority zones ahead of potential first-pass drilling.
"The tenement has been a longstanding missing piece of known silver anomalism and base metal mineralisation adjoining the Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease," said West Coast Silver chief executive Sergei Smolonogov.
The Elizabeth Hill mine, held on a granted mining lease about 12 kilometres from the Artemis Resources Radio Hill processing facility, previously produced 1.2 million ounces of silver from just 16,830 tonnes of ore before closing in 2000 amid low silver prices.
News Intelligence what this means for the company
West Coast Silver has secured a prospecting licence adjacent to the Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease, expanding the footprint of Alien Metals' 30% joint venture stake. The new ground contains historical silver anomalies largely untested for the metal—only 7 of 521 historical drill samples exceeded detection limits—leaving room for discovery; West Coast plans data consolidation, field validation and geophysics before drilling, positioning this as a near-mine exploration upside to complement the project's 141,000-tonne JORC resource at 617 g/t Ag.
The licence grant removes a tenure gap and adds a low-risk, high-optionality target immediately adjacent to a producing asset (Elizabeth Hill yielded 1.2 million ounces from 16,830 tonnes before 2000 closure). For a 30% holder in early-stage exploration, this extends the project's exploration runway without material capital commitment at this stage, though the historical work was not silver-focused and the prospect remains undrilled for the metal.
Insights assembled by AI. Editor-reviewed and grounded in tickstock’s coverage and proprietary knowledge graph.
Content is for informational purposes only, not financial advice.
