Northern Shield options Highbank to Impala

South Africa’s Impala Platinum Holdings (IMPAF-P) has agreed to take up to a 60% stake in Ottawa-based junior Northern Shield Resources‘ (NRN-V) Highbank Lake platinum-palladium property, 240 km north of Nakina, Ont.

Under the deal, the world’s second largest platinum producer can take an initial 20% stake by funding $1 million worth of exploration during the first year of the agreement. Impala can then boost its stake to 45% by funding another $2.5 million in exploration over the subsequent two year, and finally to 60% for another $1.5 million. The deal also calls for Impala to make 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," said Northern Shield CEO Ian Bliss in a prepared statement.

"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 added.

Northern Shield first identified the 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 identified 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.