A Sudbury junior miner has flipped a northeastern Ontario base metal property to an Australian exploration outfit.
Transition Metals announced April 15 that it has completed the sale of the Dundonald nickel-copper-property near Iroquois Falls to Legendary Ore Mining.
Legendary is a subsidiary of VaniCom of Perth, Western Australia. The two parties signed a binding letter of intent last August.
The terms of the sale involved an initial payment of $50,000 to Transition Metals at the signing the letter of intent followed by a second payment of $100,000 upon closing the definitive purchase agreement.
In addition, VaniCom will issue Transition Metals shares with a value of $350,000, plus Transition will receive a 2.5 per cent net smelter royalty on any future production from the property.
As part of the deal, Legendary must spend at least $750,000 on exploration and development on the property over a 36-month period or, at its option, Transition can buy back the property for $1.
“The project was purchased by the company as part of a bundle of three properties secured through the bankruptcy auction of First Nickel Inc. assets,” said Transition Metals president-CEO Scott McLean in a statement.
“We have now been able to leverage two of the properties through sale arrangements while preserving access to the upside of the projects for our shareholders. We are hopeful that we will be able to further leverage the acquisitions with the sale of the third Ni-Cu-PGM (nickel, copper, platinum group metals) project going forward.”
VaniCom is an unlisted public company with another nickel sulphide property in northwestern Quebec and a vanadium property in Newfoundland. The company states on its website that it’s looking to acquire vanadium claims in Northern Ontario.
The 950-hectare Dundonald property hosts high-grade nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals along a 9.5-kilometre strike.
The property is next to the former Alexo nickel mine, which VaniCom picked up from Tartisan Nickel last October.
The mine halted production in 2005 due to low nickel prices. The deposit hosts an historic resource estimate of 116,000 tonnes of nickel, grading 3.16 per cent, and carrying elevated cobalt and PGM’s based on 75,000 metres of drilling completed a decade ago.
VaniCom believes this package of northeastern Ontario properties is poised for a “rapid turnaround back into production” based on rising prices for nickel and vanadium, fueled by global steel and batter demand.
The company states it is well placed to be a nickel producer based on its proximity to nickel processing mills in Northern Ontario.
