South Atlantic buys stake in Arctic Platinum

Vancouver — South Atlantic Ventures (SAA-V) will pay US$23 million in cash and US$8 million in shares for Outokumpu‘s 49% interest in the Arctic Platinum partnership (APP), an exploration project in northern Finland.

The deal is subject to Gold Fields‘ (GFI-N) right of first refusal.

Established by Outokumpu and Gold Fields, the APP consists of three mining licences and 342 claims with a total area of 305 sq. km.

So far, Gold Fields and Outokumpu have carried out large-scale drilling on primary nickel, copper and platinum-group-metal deposits. The Suhanko mining licence, 60 km south of the city of Rovaniemi, is the subject of an ongoing feasibility study and environmental impact assessment. Plans call for open-pit mining of the Konttijarvi and Ahmavaara deposits, as well as mining of the SK Reef for supplementary feed to the Suhanko processing plant.

Estimated resources, based on a cutoff grade above 0.5 gram platinum-palladium-gold per tonne, are as follows:

— Konttijarvi deposit — 54 million tonnes grading 1.44 grams palladium, 0.4 gram platinum and 0.1 gram gold per tonne, plus 0.16% copper and 0.06% nickel.

— Ahmavaara deposit — 99.8 million tonnes averaging 1.1 grams palladium, 0.23 gram platinum, 0.14 gram gold, 0.22% copper and 0.09% nickel.

— Ahmavaara East deposit — 29.8 million tonnes of 0.83 gram palladium, 0.18 gram platinum, 0.11 gram gold, 0.17% copper and 0.06% nickel.

— SK Reef deposit — 35 million tonnes of 3.55 grams palladium, 0.97 gram platinum, 0.15 gram gold, 0.12% copper and 0.1% nickel.

The total combined resource is pegged at 218.6 million tonnes grading 1.54 grams palladium, 0.38 gram platinum, 0.13 gram gold, 0.18% copper and 0.08% nickel.

Platinum-group-metal mineralization occurs near the base of the late-Archean-to-early-Proterozoic-aged layered mafic intrusions, known as Suhanko, Narkaus and Penikat. Strike lengths exceeding 2 km and thicknesses of up to 60 metres have been defined in the various deposits within these intrusions. The mineralization is highly variable and includes disseminated PGM-bearing copper nickel sulphides, massive sulphide lenses near the basal contact at the Suhanko intrusion, PGM reef-style mineralization, and offset-style copper PGM mineralization in basement gneisses and granites.

South Atlantic has engaged Watts Griffis & McOuat to prepare a technical report on the project.