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Mining Explorers 2009: JV seeks base metals, PGEs at Man Pure Nickel, Itochu explore high-grade nickel-copper-PGE property in Alaska Shane Lasley Mining News
Forging a partnership in 2008 on the Man Project in Alaska, Pure Nickel Inc. and Itochu Corp. launched a US$4.9 million exploration program at the high-grade nickel-copper-platinum group element property located 400 kilometers, or 248 miles, northeast of Anchorage. The new partners aim to explore this massive property, which hosts multiple intrusive complexes containing high-grade base metal and PGE mineralization.
Tokyo-based Itochu is a publicly listed 150-year-old conglomerate with multiple divisions operated through 17 offices in Japan and 139 overseas locations. The joint venture with Pure Nickel is through Itochu’s Metals, Mineral Resources & Coal Division, Energy, Metals & Minerals Co.
“Itochu has a solid reputation for its long-term vision. Itochu’s many decades of success speak volumes about the quality of the organization and its people. We have been fervent believers in the potential of Man, and it is extremely gratifying that Itochu has embraced our belief in the property,” said Pure Nickel President and CEO David McPherson.
Alpha and Beta Tokyo-based Itochu and Toronto-based Pure Nickel originally set a US$ 4.4 million budget to support a 5,000-meter drill program at the Man property in 2009. The partners later added US$500,000 to the budget in order to complete a 2,722 line-kilometer Z-Axis Tipper Electromagnetic airborne survey to help identify drill targets on the 750-square-kilometer, or 290-square-mile property.
The junior said the innovative ZTEM survey, which uses the natural or passive fields of the Earth as the source of transmitted energy, is a great geophysical tool for the nickel-copper-PGE project.
Utilizing the information from the ZTEM survey along with information collected from soil geochemistry, structural analysis and previous geophysical work, Pure Nickel selected targets for more than 5,000-meter of drill program at Man.
Following up on discoveries made over the past two years, the 2009 drill program focused on the 34-kilometer-long Alpha Complex and the copper-rich Beta Complex.
In 2007, after gaining a 100 percent interest in the Man property as a result of a reverse takeover of Nevada Star Resources Corp., Pure Nickel drilled 3,359 Alpha Complex. The following year the explorer shifted its focus, drilling a modest 4-hole program at the Beta Complex, located about eight kilometers, or five miles, south of Alpha.
McPherson said the partners would release the results of the 2009 drill program once all the assays are back from the lab. The drill program at Man wrapped up at the end of September and assay results had not been released at the time of this report.
Watch Itochu in ‘09 A global search for platinum group element and base metal properties led Itochu to the Man project. In a deal announced in November 2008, the Japanese firm agreed to invest as much as US$40 million to earn up to a 75 percent stake in Pure Nickel’s Man Project.
“We are very pleased to begin our partnership with Pure Nickel, which has come about after considerable review of the potential of the Man property. Our organization has been studying potential exploration projects of platinum group metals and base (metals) around the world. The Man project has a high probability of becoming a world-class project and fits well with our policies and concepts,” said Satoshi Kondo, Itochu group manager of Mineral Resource Development Group. “Importantly, we are very confident and comfortable with Pure Nickel’s team and the relationships we have mutually developed that allowed our review and negotiations to go very smoothly.”
Under terms of the agreement, Itochu can earn a 60 percent interest in Man by spending $30 million on exploration over the first six years of the option period. Once Itochu has earned a 60 percent interest, the Tokyo-based company has the option to earn an additional 15 percent interest in the property by investing another $10 million in exploration during the seventh year of the agreement. The pact also provides for acceleration of the earn-in timetable.
Pure Nickel will receive a 10 percent management fee to operate exploration activities at the Man property.
At the end of 2009 and again at the end of 2013, Itochu has the right to exercise its option to continue exploring at Man. The company will have firsthand information when it makes its decision on whether to move forward with the project at year’s end.
“Our Japanese partners were very active in the program, in the sense that they had people onsite most of the season,” McPherson said.
Visits from Itochu included some of the mega-corporation’s senior executives. “I encourage our investors to watch what Itochu does, for sure,” McPherson said.
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