Los Cerros picks up battery metals play in PNG with acquisition of privately held polymetals company

Smallcap miner Los Cerros (ASX:LCL) has acquired copper, nickel and gold assets in Papua New Guinea (PNG) through the acquisition of privately held Footprint Resources Pty Ltd for $0.35m—giving Loss Cerros a new battery metals play. 

Nickel and copper, historically relegated to the halls of base metals investment, are undergoing new life as crucial components of EV batteries, and, batteries for grid-scale energy storage infrastructure. 

Los Cerros notes it wants to seek JV partners to assist at its new PNG portfolio. 

Footprint executives will join Los Cerros to ensure knowledge handover is facilitated in a meaningful fashion and that those closest to the tenements in question continue existing relationships. 

The acquisition sees Los Cerros take on Footprint’s following projects: 

• Ono Project (gold and copper; contains the Kusi target) 

• Veri Veri Prospect (nickel)

• Liamu Project (gold and copper) 

• Imou Project (gold and copper) 

• Tauya Project (copper) 

Kusi drilling up first; Veri Veri next 

Los Cerros will launch straight into designing a diamond drill plan for the Kusi target, part of the Ono copper-gold project and the company’s most advanced exploration lead. 

Three existing diamond drill holes were sunk at Kusi which returned the below results. For context, investor information provider Undervalued Equity classifies high grade gold as that in concentrations over five grams of gold per tonne of ore (5g/t).

• 10m @ 2.39g/t gold from surface 

• 20m @ 2.89g/t gold from 107m depth 

• 35m @ 3.04g/t gold from 136m depth 

A new 3,000m diamond drill run is now on the cards for Kusi with recent trench sampling also revealing 8m @ 11.5g/t gold, 2.6% copper and 24g/t silver; silver grades are roughly medium. 

The Veri Veri nickel target will also see “modern geophysical techniques” carried out alongside fieldwork to locate the nickel sulphides known to be present in at least piecemeal mineralisation at the target. 

The company is seeking to “locate the source of massive nickel sulphide boulder float assaying up to 45.8% nickel at Veri Veri.”

“I have walked the ground:” management

“I have walked the ground over the key projects and the near term prospectivity of our new PNG portfolio is compelling,” Los Cerros chief Jason Stirbinskis said. 

“This transformational addition to the Los Cerros mineral portfolio offers immediate and material exploration upside as well as jurisdictional and metal diversity, in particular the addition of critical metals to the electric vehicle sector.” 

Stirbinskis further noted the company continues to develop engineering studies for its play in Colombia.

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