Pure Nickel, Crowflight team up for Manibridge (November 15, 2007)

Pure Nickel(NIC-T, PNCKF-O) and Crowflight Minerals (CML-V) will be combining interests on the Manibridge nickel property southwest of Wabowden, Man., a Pure Nickel property surrounded by Crowflight’s Thompson Nickel Belt South land package.

Under the terms of the deal, each company contributes $6 million over three years to fund the joint venture, with Pure Nickel contributing four claim blocks immediately around the Manibridge deposit and Crowflight contributing seven blocks to make an 18-sq.-km joint venture area. In addition, Pure Nickel gets an option to earn a 50% interest in 34 claims surrounding the area by spending $1.5 million on exploration over three years.

Crowflight, which is developing the Bucko nickel deposit just south of Wabowden for production early in 2008, will be operator of the joint venture.

To put together the complete land package for the joint venture and option area, Crowflight concluded a separate deal with HudBay Mining (HBM-T) to earn a 100% interest in two claims, one in the immediate mine area and one in the joint-venture area. Crowflight’s deal with HudBay obliges it to pay $250,000 and to fund exploration expenditures to a total of $750,000 by 2011. HudBay also gets a 2% net smelter return, a right to offer an offtake deal for processing any mineralization, and a back-in right on the project.

Xstrata (XTA-L) retains a 2% net smelter return on the four Manibridge claims, which is an old Falconbridge project. It has an offtake option on production from Manibridge, and a back-in right on one of the properties it dealt to Pure Nickel in August 2007.