Electra Battery Materials Corporation (NASDAQ: ELBM; TSX-V: ELBM) (“Electra” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has secured a 10-year exploration permit for its Idaho copper and cobalt properties, including its Iron Creek project, in the Idaho Cobalt Belt, U.S.A. Covering 91 designated drill pad locations and hundreds of potential drill targets, this long-term permit enhances project certainty, offers greater planning flexibility, and significantly reduces administrative requirements compared to annual permits.
Approved by the U.S. Forestry Service, this permit enables Electra to advance its exploration of critical mineral resources essential to the U.S. economy across the Iron Creek Deposit, the Ruby Project, as well as the neighboring CAS and Redcastle option agreement properties.
Trent Mell, Electra CEO, said, “Securing this 10-year exploration permit is an important milestone for copper and cobalt mining in the U.S. and supports America’s commitment to strengthening domestic critical mineral production. This permit provides us the necessary regulatory certainty and flexibility to advance exploration at 91 designated drilling sites, and positions Electra as a potential key contributor to North America’s evolving battery supply chain. Our primary near-term focus is completing construction of North America’s first battery-grade cobalt refinery, but we see substantial potential in the Idaho Cobalt Belt and are eager to resume drilling and field exploration as conditions and strategy dictate.”
The first Trump administration underscored the strategic importance of securing critical minerals with its 2017 Executive Order 13817, which prioritized identifying and developing domestic mineral resources. Today, as the demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure surges, the urgency for secure, reliable access to key elements such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper continue to grow.
The 10-year exploration permit allows the Company to undertake exploration activities including setting up 91 drilling locations, along with constructing temporary access roads and staging areas, over 11.3 acres of the Idaho properties. The Idaho properties consist of mining patents and exploration claims over an area of 73.15 km2, including the Iron Creek Project, and cover the strike extent of strata hosting the cobalt-copper sulfide mineralization. Iron Creek is one of several cobalt-copper mineral resources and prospects within the Idaho Cobalt Belt, a prospective mineralized system that contains copper and the largest primary cobalt resources in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Historical underground development at Iron Creek includes 600 metres of drifting in three adits. A road connects Iron Creek to a state highway and the nearby towns of Challis and Salmon. Electra’s Iron Creek Property position cover a highly perspective and underexplored land package including the Redcastle Property and the CAS Property.
Within Electra’s property boundary, there are seven reported occurrences of metallic mineralization exposed on surface or encountered in drilling. Iron Creek is the main mineralized body and Ruby is the second most important target identified to date. The resource area of the Iron Creek project covers an area of 1,652 metres of strike length and 780 metres of width and extends to a height of 852 metres. In March 2023, Electra released an updated Mineral Resources Estimate (“MRE”) for the Iron Creek project area. As a result of infill and step-out drilling, Electra upgraded 54% of the Inferred classification of the 2019 MRE to the Indicated classification. Highlights include:
- Indicated Mineral Resource of 4.5 million tonnes grading 0.19% cobalt for 18.4 million pounds cobalt and grading 0.73% copper for 71.5 million pounds of copper;
- Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.2 million tonnes grading at 0.08% cobalt for 2.1 million pounds of cobalt and grading 1.34% copper for 36.5 million pounds of copper;
- The 2023 MRE was prepared for a potential underground scenario with a US$87.00 net smelter return (NSR) cut-off grade; and
- Additional drilling was recommended to connect isolated intercepts by drilling within or along strike and at depth of the Mineral Resources, and advance Ruby by drilling to increase the Inferred Mineral Resources.
The 2023 updated MRE is disclosed in a technical report published by Electra on March 10, 2023 under the title “NI 43-101 Technical Report and Mineral Resource Estimate for the Iron Creek Cobalt-Copper Property, Lemhi County, Idaho, USA”. The report was prepared by Martin Perron, P.Eng., Marc R. Beauvais, P.Eng. and Eric Kinnan, P.Geo, and is dated effective January 27, 2023.
