Palisades Goldcorp Ltd., a private Vancouver company, has taken a 48% stake in Victory Metals Inc. [VMX-TSXV], a company that is working to advance the its Iron Point Vanadium Project near Winnemucca, Nevada.
Palisades says it has emerged as a key Victory shareholder by acquiring, by way of a private agreement, 43.8 million common shares of the junior in return for approximately 15 million shares of Palisades.
Victory Metals shares were unchanged Wednesday at 38 cents, a 52-week low. That compares to a one-year high of 77 cents.
Victory owns 100% interest in the Iron Point Project and said it is well funded to advance the property towards resource estimation and a preliminary economic assessment. Iron Point is located about 30 km from the town of Winnemucca. A high voltage transmission line runs through the property. A railway line also runs across the northern boundary.
Vanadium is listed as a strategic metal in the U.S. It is used in the steel industry as a strengthening agent, creating a lightweight, high temperature alloy. Vanadium is also a battery metal. Vanadium Redox Batteries are being adopted at a rapid rate in China to support clean, baseload power from renewable resources.
Back in February, 2019, Victory said it was pleased with results of a maiden drilling program featuring holes that were chosen to confirm the vanadium mineralization and grades reported in historical holes drilled by Newmont Goldcorp Corp. [NGT-TSX; NEM-NYSE] in 1966 and Aur Resources between 1996 and 1997.
Newmont and Aur Resources were both drilling for gold, but intersected significant vanadium intervals at shallow depths.
However, Victory CEO Collin Kettell said grades obtained by Aur Resources underrepresented vanadium values as their holes did not fully recover higher-grade mineralization hosted in fractured zones. Victory’s drilling with a centre return hammer returned higher vanadium values over greater intercept lengths.
“Many of the historical holes were limited to a depth of roughly 100 metres,” Kettell said.
Highlights from Victory’s maiden drilling program included 44 metres, grading 0.48% V2O5 in hole VM-02 and 27 metres, grading 0.56% V2O5 in drill hole VM-07.
Drilling at Iron Point has subsequently found two high grade zones, referred to as the Upper High Grade and New High Grade zones. Key intercepts include 37 metres grading 0.55% V2O5. The company said high-grade intercepts occur within a broad envelope of lower grade vanadium mineralization that extends from surface down to a depth of 175 metres.
In May, 2019, Victory announced an option agreement with Ethos Gold Corp. [ECC-TSXV] that allows Ethos to earn a 50% stake in the gold and silver rights at Iron Point by spending $5 million over three years.
Ethos conducted a Phase One, 2,504-metre drill program at Iron Point, which concluded in September 2019. Victory said results of the program are encouraging and found significant anomalous gold at depth.
Dr. Quinton Hennigh, a technical consultant to Ethos, led the drill program to test his theory on the presence of a deep Carlin-style gold deposit. Phase One represented the first ever deep drilling at Iron Point.
Prior to the announcement by Palisades, Victory said it has a proven capital markets and mining team led by Executive Chairman Paul Matysek. It previously said major shareholders include Casino Gold (46%), and management, directors and founders (27%).