Field program anticipated to commence in late July
ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND and LABRADOR--(Marketwired - Jul 25, 2013) - Altius Minerals Corp. 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 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 Ltd., 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.
