Ariana completes sale of Pilbara lithium tenements

(ShareCast News) - Ariana Resources had a bit more cash in its back pocket on Tuesday, having completed the sale of a package of tenements in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to Dakota Minerals, through its 86%-owned Australian subsidiary Asgard Metals.The AIM-traded company had initially announced the planned transaction on 18 December, when it described the tenements as containing part of an extensive lithium-tantalum bearing pegmatitic dyke swarm.Following the satisfaction of all conditions, including grant of the core tenement, Dakota shareholder approval and an AUD 3.6m (£1.85m) capital raising by Dakota, the sale was now complete.The initial cash payment to Asgard of AUD 147,000, and 22.5 million fully-paid ordinary shares in Dakota - currently valued at AUD 1.2m - had been finalised. Ariana now owned 8% of Dakota.Asgard's board said it was to benefit from a fixed consulting fee of AUD 98.000 over the course of 12 months, and up to 29.4 million performance shares which were to be issued on the achievement of certain project milestones."The completion of our transaction with Dakota is a significant boost to our emerging interests in technology-metals and proves our exploration targeting capabilities in parallel with our ability to rapidly commercialise new project opportunities outside of Turkey," said managing director Dr Kerim Sener."We are continuing our efforts to identify further projects in the technology-metals space with a special focus on lithium at this time," he added.The company's exploration model for lithium was now being applied to identify new project opportunities across other geological provinces worldwide, including those in Turkey.