Altius Executes Agreement on Natashquan Nickel-Copper-PGE Project With Anglo American
Marketwire
Altius Executes Agreement on Natashquan Nickel-Copper-PGE Project With Anglo American
Field program anticipated to commence in late July
ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND and LABRADOR--(Marketwired - July 25, 2013) - Altius Minerals Corporation is pleased to announce that it has entered into a joint venture ("JV") agreement with Anglo American with respect to its Natashquan nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum-palladium project in southern Labrador, Canada.
With an initial spend of $650,000 in 2013, Anglo American has the option to earn a 66% interest in the project, through agreed additional expenditures of $20 million over a five year period. Upon declaring a JV, Altius will also be granted a 1% net smelter returns (NSR) royalty. Anglo American will be the operator during the earn-in phase and the initial manager to the JV. Plans are in progress to commence a multifaceted field program in July.
The 256 square kilometre Natashquan Property is located approximately 140 kilometres southwest of Churchill Falls, Labrador and represents a new Ni-Cu-Co-PGE discovery in a frontier area of Labrador. Altius staked the prospect in 2007 as a follow up of reported anomalous platinum and palladium (PGE) in Late Paleoproterozoic mafic to ultramafic intrusive rocks by the Newfoundland Geological Survey in 2001. Altius subsequently completed an AeroTEM II-magnetometer survey in early 2008 that outlined EM anomalous zones. Subsequent prospecting programs investigating various coincident EM-mag targets resulted in the discovery of additional nickel-copper-PGE sulphide mineralization.
Lawrence Winter, Ph.D., P.Geo., Vice‐President of Exploration for Altius, is the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 guidelines responsible for the technical data presented herein and has reviewed and approved this release. Jeff Morgan, B.Sc., P.Geo., is the qualified person, as defined by NI 43-101, responsible for project management and quality assurance/quality control at Natashquan. Complete technical details for this program including analytical procedures are described at http://altiusminerals.com/projects/natashquan.
About Altius
Altius is focused on the mining and resources sector through prospect generation and the creation and acquisition of royalties and investments. Altius has a strong financial position with total assets of approximately $257 million, including $145 million in cash and marketable securities. It has also built a portfolio of directly and indirectly held junior resource investments, including 32.9 million shares of Alderon Iron Ore Corp. (TSX:ADV).
Altius owns a 3% gross sales royalty on the Kami iron ore project of Alderon, an effective 0.3% net smelter return royalty on the producing Voisey's Bay nickel-copper-cobalt mine, a 2% gross sales royalty on uranium in the Central Mineral Belt project of Paladin Energy Limited, and several earlier stage resource project royalties. Its growing project generation pipeline consists of a diversified portfolio of exploration projects, many of which have attracted joint venture funding partners.
Altius is a member of the S&P/TSX Global Mining Index and currently has 27,833,404 shares outstanding.