NXG kicked off trading today as a spin-off of Sovereign Metals, which is determined to focus on its Kasiya project in Malawi, said to be the world's largest natural rutile deposit and second largest flake graphite deposit with resources of 1.8 billion tonnes at 1% rutile and 1.4% graphite.

 

With Kasiya taking up its time and cash, NGX was formed to advance smaller projects as a graphite explorer: the Malingunde, Duwi, Nanzeka and Mabuwa projects in Malawi that have been bubbling on the backburner for the past several years. 

 

Malingunde is 20km southwest of the capital and has a resource of 65Mt at 7.2% TGC for 4.68Mt and was subject to a prefeasibility in 2018, and Duwi is just 15km east of Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, and has resources of 85.9Mt at 7.1% total graphitic carbon for 6.13Mt of contained graphite.

 

NXG plans to complete a definitive feasibility study on Malingunde, building on a 2021 study that confirmed the development as being low-cost and low-risk, supporting a mining lease application, supporting a US$70 million 52,000tpa graphite concentrate operation with a 16-year life.

 

Metallurgical and scoping studies are planned for Duwi, with the company seeing a supply deficient in graphite later this decade.

 

Nanzeka is 60km north of the capital has seen some encouraging trenching and drilling, while the greenfield Mabuwa application is to the south and covers a mafic-ultramafic intrusive body potentially favourable for nickel and platinum group elements sulphide mineralisation but has seen no prior exploration.

 

NXG's team is headed up by well-known corporate player Ian Middlemas as chair, executive director Matthew Syme and two non-executives, chemical engineer Matthew Bungey and accountant Mark Pearce.

 

The stock is tightly controlled, with just 24% not controlled by the top 20 shareholders.

 

NGX shares peaked at 28c, a rise of 40% during the session, closing at 25c.

 

Around half a million shares changed hands.