Royal Helium (RHC.V), one of Canada’s largest lease holders of prospective helium properties, announced today that the company had received results from a recent sampling at the company’s Climax project in its Saskatchewan helium play.
Climax is one of ten main blocks in Royal’s 348,908 hectares of prospective helium rights across Southern Saskatchewan.
Sample results from Climax included 84.9 mg/l lithium found in the underlying brine within the zone.
As such, Royal has provided notice to the Province of Saskatchewan that it intends to acquire lithium mineral rights with the aim of advancing a lithium brine project alongside the continuing helium development operations.
Andrew Davidson, company president and CEO, commented, “In the Climax-1 well, drilled in January, 2021, one of the zones that we tested showed significant inflows of brine water and gas. Samples of both were taken and sent to lab for assay, returning elevated levels of helium and significant concentrations of lithium in brine. With recorded lithium grades of 84.9 milligrams/litre, combined with flow rates in the range of 1.85 MMCF [million cubic feet] per day equivalent, Climax is set to not only become a cash generative helium play, but also now presents potential additional value to stakeholders with a lithium exploration and development project.”
Economic helium concentrations were announced by Royal back in April 2021, with tests returning levels ranging from 0.33% to 0.64% helium from the Deadwood, Souris River and Duperow formations.
A fourth well at Climax meant to offset Climax-3, was drilled in August 2021. Climax-4 had the highest and most consistently elevated helium shows up until that date at Climax.
Royal will update the public on its mineral rights progress with the government of Saskatchewan as new details become available.
The release noted that Royal’s mineral rights applications, if successful, will guarantee the company will be the sole right holder over the zones of interest at Climax, as competing rights over the same zones cannot be granted.
In recent news, Royal announced the appointment of Saskatchewan oil and gas industry veteran, Shayne Neigum, as its COO and head of exploration, replacing Stephen Halabura who will be stepping down from his position as VP Exploration.
Also, in the middle of August, the helium explorer announced that it intended to seek a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market. To help push this forward, Royal engaged Strand Hanson Limited of London to act as the company’s Nominated Advisor on the proposed listing.
Royal currently trades at $0.40 per share for a market cap of $56.38 million.
–Gaalen Engen
