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Pioche Sepiolite Project - Update

23rd Jul 2025 07:00

RNS Number : 1252S
Sunrise Resources Plc
23 July 2025
 

23 July 2025

 

SUNRISE RESOURCES PLC

("Sunrise" or the "Company")

 

 

Pioche Sepiolite Project - Update

 

 

Sunrise Resources plc is pleased to advise that it has now taken delivery of all remaining surface and drill samples from its Pioche Sepiolite Project in Nevada.

 

The samples were collected by Tolsa USA, Inc. ("Tolsa"), during the period it held the project under option from the Company (June 2022 to December 2024). The samples have a cumulative weight of approximately one tonne and have been shipped from Tolsa's head office in Spain. The samples come from surface trenching and two periods of drilling using auger and sonic drill rigs.

 

The sepiolite samples will now be used for additional in-house testing by the Company's partner in the project, Tom Powell, an expert in sepiolite, and to provide material to various parties who have expressed interest in the Pioche Project since Tolsa's withdrawal from the project at the end of 2024.

 

The results from Company's work on a small subset of samples shipped in advance of the main consignment were reported in a news release dated 15 April 2025. Those results compare very favourably with commercially available sepiolite in the US and confirm the commercial potential of the large sepiolite clay deposits at Pioche across a range of applications including critical saltwater applications in the valuable oil and gas drilling market.

 

Since then, the Company has carried out 3D modelling of the sepiolite horizons drilled by Tolsa. This work has demonstrated that the main sepiolite horizon can be correlated between drill holes, despite their wide spacing.

 

A drill plan and schematic drill cross sections can be found at the end of this news release, illustrating the large near surface extent of the main sepiolite horizon and a second, lower sepiolite horizon, seen only in deeper drill holes.

 

 

Commenting today, Executive Chairman Patrick Cheetham said:

 

"It has taken rather longer than anticipated to obtain these samples, but we are now able to move our discussions with interested parties to the next stage.

 

"We are very encouraged to see a high level of interest in the Project from both US domestic companies, as well as international industrial mineral companies and feel that Tolsa's work has added substantially to the value of the Project over and above the US$1.2 million option purchase price that was first agreed with Tolsa back in 2022, prior to any exploration taking place."

 

 

 

 

Further information:

 

Sunrise Resources plc

Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman

Tel: +44 (0)1625 838 884

 

Beaumont Cornish Limited

Nominated Adviser

James Biddle/Roland Cornish

Tel: +44 (0)207 628 3396

 

Peterhouse Capital Limited

Broker

Lucy Williams/Duncan Vasey

 

Tel: +44 (0)207 469 0930

 

 

Shares in the Company trade on AIM. EPIC: "SRES"

Website: www.sunriseresourcesplc.com

 

 

Nominated Adviser

Beaumont Cornish Limited ("Beaumont Cornish") is the Company's Nominated Adviser and is authorised and regulated by the FCA. Beaumont Cornish's responsibilities as the Company's Nominated Adviser, including a responsibility to advise and guide the Company on its responsibilities under the AIM Rules for Companies and AIM Rules for Nominated Advisers, are owed solely to the London Stock Exchange. Beaumont Cornish is not acting for and will not be responsible to any other persons for providing protections afforded to customers of Beaumont Cornish nor for advising them in relation to the proposed arrangements described in this announcement or any matter referred to in it.

 

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 which forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 ('MAR'). Upon the publication of this announcement via Regulatory Information Service ('RIS'), this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

 

Qualified Person Information:

The information in this release has been compiled and reviewed by Mr. Patrick Cheetham (MIMMM, MAusIMM) who is a qualified person for the purposes of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Mr. Cheetham is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and also a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy.

 

Cautionary Notice

The news release may contain certain statements and expressions of belief, expectation or opinion which are forward looking statements, and which relate, inter alia, to the Company's proposed strategy, plans and objectives or to the expectations or intentions of the Company's directors. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors beyond the control of the Company that could cause the actual performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, you should not rely on any forward-looking statements and save as required by the AIM Rules for Companies or by law, the Company does not accept any obligation to disseminate any updates or revisions to such forward-looking statements.

 

 

 

 

NOTES:

 

About the Pioche Sepiolite Project

The Pioche Sepiolite Project claims are 100% owned by SR Minerals Inc. ("SRM"), a Nevada-registered and wholly owned subsidiary of Sunrise Resources plc. Tom Powell holds a 20% beneficial interest in the Project.

The Project is located in Lincoln County, Nevada, to the northeast of Pioche, a historic mining town just off US Route 93. The Company's mining claims are on Federally owned land administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Access to rail is available at the town of Caliente, 35 miles south of the project area on Route 93.

Originally documented as a sepiolite occurrence in the 1970s, the occurrence was relocated by the Company in 2021. In 2022, Tolsa, a US subsidiary of Spanish sepiolite producer Tolsa SA, entered into an option to purchase agreement with SRM and explored the property until December 2024 when the option period expired.

Tolsa completed programmes of geological mapping, trenching, auger drilling and sonic drilling. This identified two (possibly three) sub-horizontal and extensive sepiolite beds outcropping intermittently along the margins of two mesas now known as the West and East Mesa areas. A silica rich caprock tops the sepiolite at the discovery location forming low mesas and flattened ridgetops.

About Sepiolite

Sepiolite is a rare form of clay with very few commercial deposits in the world. It is non-swelling, lightweight and highly porous. It is used extensively in pet litter, agriculture as a slow-release absorbent and adsorbent carrier for chemicals and pesticides and in animal feeds as a binder and carrier for nutrients and growth promoter. It is also a valuable gelling agent and viscosity modifier in a number of industrial products.

At present, there is only one active sepiolite mining operation in the USA, but the future of that operation is limited by the encroachment of areas of critical environmental concern.

Technical Glossary

 

Auger drilling: a method of drilling where the ground is penetrated by and sample recovered on a helical screw. Suitable for shallow reconnaissance drilling of unconsolidated materials. The drill hole is not cased (enclosed) and so is susceptible to wall rock contamination and poor recoveries.

 

Sonic drilling: a method of drilling where a hollow drill stem is vibrated at high frequency under load, sometimes under rotation, penetrating the ground and recovering an uncontaminated sample. Ideally suited for drilling clays where the samples are recovered as solid cores or plugs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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