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Under the deal, the world’s second-largest platinum producer can take an initial 20% stake by spending $1 million on exploration during the first year. Impala can then boost its stake to 45% by funding another $2.5 million in exploration over the subsequent two years, and finally to 60% for another $1.5 million. The deal also calls for Impala to make an immediate cash payment of $100,000.
Once Impala earns its 60% stake, the two companies will form a joint venture aimed at developing and exploring the 188-sq.-km property.
“We are very pleased to be working with one of the world’s foremost platinum producers to explore our Highbank Lake platinum-palladium property,” says Northern Shield CEO Ian Bliss.
“We believe Impala’s participation at this stage of the exploration demonstrates their recognition of the property’s potential to contain significant reef-hosted platinum,” he explains.
Northern Shield first identified a layered intrusion at Highbank via a re-interpretation of government regional airborne magnetic data in 2000. In 2004, drilling by the company on the property’s only known outcrop identified alternating layers of anorthosite and gabbroic rocks.
Since then, ongoing soil sampling has pinpointed several platinum-palladium zones, including the HB1 zone, which is defined by soil samples over 22 km of strike. The zone remains open at both ends.
So far, Northern Shield has identified five areas anomalous in platinum-palladium, based on more than 900 mobile metal ion (MMI) samples collected at 25-metre intervals along sections of the layered intrusion. Results from another 600 samples along the HB1 zone are expected by the end of August.
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