The acquisitions have enabled Grid to establish a dominant land position prospective for nickel, copper, platinum group metals and cobalt – all key critical metals
Grid Metals to acquire Nickel Copper PGM assets consolidates key base metal land position bird river belt . (Credit: Miroslav Gecovic from Pixabay)
Grid Metals Corp. (TSXV:GRDM; OTCQB:MSMGF) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into agreements with arms’ length third party vendors to acquire additional property in southeast Manitoba. The acquisitions have enabled Grid to establish a dominant land position prospective for nickel, copper, platinum group metals and cobalt – all key critical metals. Additional ground in the belt has been acquired through staking. The new properties provide a significantly enhanced scope for the discovery of additional nickel-copper-PGM mineralization in the belt.
The transactions are as follows:
- Acquisition from Gossan Resources Limited of the Ore Fault, Page and Chrome nickel-copper sulfide resources and associated exploration properties that adjoin the Company’s Makwa nickel property to the west:
- Indicated and Inferred resources of Ni-Cu-PGM-Au mineralization prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 in two discrete near-surface deposits (Technical Report and Resource Estimate on the Ore Fault, Galaxy and Page Zones of the Marathon/Gossan Resources Bird River Property, Southeast Manitoba (P&E Mining Consultants Inc., Feb. 26, 2009))
- Page 1.5Mt at 0.32% Ni and 0.13% Cu Indicated
- Ore Fault 0.9Mt at 0.32% Ni and 0.24% Cu Indicated
- Ore Fault 2.5Mt 0.35% Ni and 0.19% Cu Inferred
- 51 mineral claims encompassing approximately 2,870 hectares
- Claim block viewed as prospective for additional nickel + palladium mineralization
- Acquisition from a subsidiary of First Mining Gold Corp. of the Eagle Claims which host the historical New Manitoba nickel-copper sulfide deposit, located 9 km east of the Company’s Mayville M2 resource:
- New Manitoba deposit has a historical mineral resource estimate of 1.8Mt at 0.75% Cu and 0.33% Ni (Manitoba Mineral Inventory Card #217) ( Note: the Company has not been able to verify the historical estimate as relevant and the historical estimate should not be relied on)
- 10 claims and 238 hectares
- Claim block viewed as prospective for Mayville M2 type Ni-Cu-PGM mineralization
- Eagle Claims also capture prospective ground for lithium-bearing pegmatites and are enclosed by the Company’s Donner Lake property
- Staking of additional mining claims in the Bird River Belt including:
- The National Ledin property (5 claims, 1,280 hectares) covering the western extension of the Bird River Sill directly west of the Gossan Resources claims
- Property relatively unexplored but considered prospective for Makwa-type Ni-Cu-PGM mineralization
Nickel Copper Project Status and Strategic Goals
The Company currently owns a resource prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 comprising a total of 33.3 Mt of Indicated Resources averaging 0.27% Ni, 0.37% Cu and 0.14 g/t Pd (Report on the Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Combined Mayville-Makwa Project, Manitoba, Canada (RPA, Inc., April 2014)). The resources comprise two separate near-surface magmatic sulfide deposits, viz.:
- The Makwa deposit, comprising 7.2 Mt of Indicated Resources averaging 0.61% Ni, 0.13% Cu and 0.36 g/t Pd; and,
- The M2 deposit, comprising 26.6 Mt of Indicated Resources averaging 0.18% Ni, 0.44% Cu and 0.14 g/t Pd
The acquisition of these new properties will result in an immediate increase to project resource inventory and provide significant scope for further resource expansion through exploration. The Company’s aspirational target/model (goal) is to expand the base metal resources at the project to greater than 200,000 tonnes of contained nickel and 300,000 tonnes of contained copper (i.e., increase global resources to >80 million tonnes combined at approximate current grades) and to proportionally increase the associated platinum group metals and cobalt content. The Company believes that these levels will provide scope for a long-life high output nickel copper PGM operation having high metal tenors and average grades similar to that of the Kevitsa Mine (Boliden NL) in northern Finland – one of the lowest cost nickel producers in the world.
Details of the Transactions
Gossan Resources Transaction – The Company has executed a purchase agreement with Gossan Resources Limited for a 100% interest in the Chrome, Page and Ore Fault claims (collectively, the “Gossan Claims”). The purchase price for the Gossan Claims is $1.1 million in cash over three years (with $500,000 payable in year 1) and 1,500,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (“Common Shares”). The Common Shares will be subject to an initial statutory hold period of four months and one day from closing of the transaction. Thereafter, the Common Shares will be released from escrow in monthly tranches of 75,000 shares over twenty months. The Company has granted Gossan Resources a 2% net smelter return (“NSR”) royalty payable upon the commencement of commercial production from the property. In addition, a $300,000 deferred cash payment is due to Gossan Resources upon the commencement of commercial production from the property.
First Mining Gold Transaction – The Company has also executed a purchase agreement with a subsidiary of First Mining Gold Corp. for a 100% interest in the Eagle Claims. The purchase price for the Eagle Claims is $300,000 cash on closing and 250,000 Common Shares subject to a statutory hold period of four months and one day from closing of the transaction. The Company has granted First Mining Gold a 2% NSR royalty payable upon the commencement of commercial production from the property, half of which can be bought back by the Company for by paying $1 million cash to First Mining Gold. In addition, a deferred cash payment is due to First Mining Gold if the Company defines a greater than 2 million tonne NI 43-101 mineral resource on the property.
Robin Dunbar, President and CEO of Grid Metals stated ” The transactions announced today have consolidated our land position in the Bird River area, add resource inventory and give us additional wide scope for new discoveries of nickel, copper and platinum group metals. We have been eyeing these assets for several years and are pleased to now have been in a position to transact. With future demand for nickel and copper expected to be very strong the time was right for us to move forward and acquire these assets to solidify our base metal position in the Bird River area.”
The Company expects to close the transactions with Gossan Resources and First Mining Gold on or before April 21, 2023.
Source: Company Press Release