29 Jun Annual Financial Report

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RNS Number : 7159Q
Kendrick Resources PLC
29 June 2022
 
Kendrick Resources Plc
(“Kendrick” or the “Company”)
 
Final Results for period to 29 December 2021

Kendrick Resources Plc, (LSE: KEN) a mineral exploration and development company, with projects in Scandinavia, reports its full year results for the year ended 29 December 2021.

The Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 29 December 2021 will shortly be available on the Company’s website.  Copies of the Annual Report and Financial Statements will be uploaded to the National Storage Mechanism shortly.

This announcement contains information which, prior to its disclosure, was inside information as stipulated under Regulation 11 of the Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019/310 (as amended).

CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT

Dear Shareholder,

Kendrick Resources Plc (“Kendrick”) was successfully admitted to the Standard List of the London Stock Exchange on 6th May 2022.  Kendrick’s Projects are located in top mining jurisdictions within Scandinavia and are focused on the new generation battery metals for both energy storage and the metals needed for power generation. In Sweden and Finland, the Company has significant tonnages of vanadium associated with magnetite capable of producing high-grade vanadium magnetite concentrates for sale to global markets.  Previous metallurgical test work suggests that Kendrick’s vanadium magnetite concentrates are superior to most other concentrates globally, in that the vanadium values in the concentrates are above 2% V2O5 and both the uranium and titanium values are lower than the norm.

The Company has some 160 million tonnes of Inferred Mineral Resources with 44 million tonnes in Sweden and the balance in Finland. The defined Mineral Resources at Airijoki (Sweden) and Koitelainen (Finland) are open-ended and drilling programmes will take place as seasonal influences allow, with the objective of increasing both Mineral Resources. In Finland the large intrusion which contains the vanadium bearing magnetite, also contains chrome and PGM’s mineralization, which will be investigated. At Airijoki in Sweden extension of the strike will be investigated.

Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries are emerging as an important battery storage technology for the large-scale storage of energy generated from solar panels and wind farms. Whilst this application is rapidly emerging, the traditional uses of vanadium in steel manufacturing are also increasing (i.e. in the production of high-quality steel for applications where strength and lightness is important). Thus, lighter vehicles will require greater proportions of vanadium, and estimates suggest that the vanadium content in new electric vehicles may increase by up to 40%, putting upwards pressure on vanadium prices.

The Company has several projects in central Sweden which have similar geology and vanadium mineralisation to the Mineral Resources at the Airijoki Project in northern Sweden.  These projects which will be investigated for quantum and quality, as seasonal influences allow.

The Company intends to carry out fast-track metallurgical test work on vanadium mineralisation from the Airijoki Project, in order to determine a suitable process to produce either vanadium pentoxide flakes or vanadium electrolyte to add significant value against the alternative of producing a vanadium magnetite concentrate. Previous metallurgical tests carried out by Pursuit Minerals have been conducted on three samples across four grind sizes. These have shown in that increasing grind size increases mass pull to magnetic concentrate with only a slight loss of vanadium grade. As a result of this we are confident that we will be able to increase the mass pull of vanadium into the magnetite concentrate without affecting the overall vanadium magnetite concentrate grade. If we are successful in this regard, the overall project economics will improve dramatically.

In Norway, the Company has a number of nickel projects all of which are open ended both on strike and at depth. Several of the projects are located in close enough proximity to each other to potentially support a central processing unit.

We are fortunate that we have a significant exploration database much of which has not been fully utilised and we are currently assessing this database in order to generate new projects and drill targets.  The cost and time of producing the historical exploration data would have been immense and we are thus very fortunate to have a “paid for start” to our exploration programs.

Norway has long history of nickel production and to have significant resources in the rapidly emerging nickel space is exciting especially when one considers the location of the projects.

Nickel experienced a huge, abnormal price spike some three months ago, which is now being normalised with prices hovering around the US$20,000 per tonne mark. We believe that this price is sustainable although the economic assessment of our projects will utilise the US$15,000 per tonne nickel price.

There is currently a shortage globally of nickel resources and 60% of available known resources are oxides or laterites which have proven very difficult to process in the past and little progress has been made in the cost effective processing of nickel oxides and laterites. Kendrick is fortunate in that our nickel resources in Norway are sulphides and therefore amenable to conventional floatation technology which produces a concentrate for smelting. We will be drilling the Norway nickel deposits on a continuing basis with the objective of developing a Mineral Resource prior to undertaking feasibility studies. A number of companies globally are now supplying relatively simple options and co-venturing developing projects. This approach, if individual tonnages and grade permit, may be an ideal way of fast-tracking nickel concentrates from our Norwegian projects into European markets.

Our northern European location and industry contacts has already brought our management team opportunities which were not obvious at the time of listing the Company, and we look forward to pursuing these opportunities both pro-actively and re-actively in the short-term.

I am excited about our projects and the competitive advantage we have in northern Europe and the management team and I are looking forward to pursuing the opportunities available and adding value for our shareholders in the short-term future.

I would like to thank my fellow directors and the Kendrick Management Team for their support during the pre-listing phase and their enthusiastic approach to maximizing the benefit for shareholders from our existing project portfolio.

Results for the year

The Company reported a loss before taxation for the year of £325,000 (2020: £33,000) mainly due to administrative costs of £289,000, including professional, consulting and directors’ fees .  Net liabilities  at 29 December 2021 amounted to £236,363 (2020: Net assets £89,000) including the investment in the Nordic Projects and related transaction costs of £674,000 (2020: £Nil).

AGM and Resolutions

The resolutions for the forthcoming Annual General Meeting will be contained in a separate Notice which will be made available to shareholders and on the website www.kendrickresources.com. The Directors will recommend shareholders to vote in favour of all the resolutions and a form of proxy will be dispatched to all shareholders for this purpose

Colin Bird

Chairman

29 June 2022

The full Kendrick Resources PLC Final Results for period to 29 December 2021 are available here.