[ferro-alloys.com]Canadian junior miner Explorex Resources (CSE:EX) (OTC:EXPXF) said Monday that crews had been mobilized to initiate the maiden drill program at its cobalt-manganese base metals Kagoot Brook project, located in New Brunswick, Atlantic Canada.

The Vancouver-based miner is taking advantage of a window of opportunity presented by a local drill company to complete two holes prior to the Christmas break.

This initial two-hole, 500-meter drill program is limited in scope and designed to drill one partial transect across the target, Explorex said.

Due to timing, the company anticipates it will process the core once the technical crew returns to the project in the new year, with results reported thereafter.

Explorex Resources has been working hard to leave the status of junior miner behind. Its main focus so far has been cobalt, a key metal in the making of in rechargeable batteries with long-lasting storage life — a primary objective in the electric-vehicle (EV) market.

Last month, it acquired a nickel-copper-cobalt deposit in the historic Outokumpu mining camp of eastern Finland.

The Hautalampi project was the focus for pre-production development in the mid-1980s and has seen extensive engineering that supported a feasibility study in 2009.

Currently, over half the world's cobalt production is allocated to electric batteries, a number that is expected to rise significantly as carmakers aim at producing zero-emission EVs. And about 42% of the global cobalt supply is used specifically in battery lithium-ion cells.

(Mining.com)

• [Editor:王可]