The aspiring builders of a palladium mine near Thunder Bay have raised $12.5 million to fund more exploration on growing mineral resource.
Clean Air Metals announced Feb. 23 that it closed the private placement which is earmarked to do exploration drilling on its 29,000-hectare property, 50 kilometres north of the city.
Michael Gentile, considered a leading strategic investor in the junior mining sector, bought in for $1.65 million.
A preliminary economic assessment released by the company in December painted a 10-year mine life at Thunder Bay North, starting with a ramp access underground mine at the Current deposit, the more well explored of two deposits on the property.
Clean Air's Current and Escape deposits, 2.5 kilometres apart, containing high-grade platinum, palladium, copper, nickel and other potentially payable metals.
The company has not yet made a construction decision to proceed. There are still a few more steps to do by way technical, metallurgical, and economic studies.
But exploration still continues at full speed with assay results still arriving. The expectation on the company's part is that the mineral resource will get substantially larger.
Executive Chair Jim Gallagher and CEO Abraham Drost believe Thunder Bay North has the same geological similarity to that of Norilsk, Russia, one of the world's richest and most minerally-endowed mining camps. They're using a Norilsk-inspired model to guide their exploration and development studies. The company said the project hosts twin magma conduit bodies which form the two deposits.
Two diamond drill rigs are currently turning at its Escape deposit where the company hopes to add more tonnes and grade in calculating a new resource estimate. A focus of this year's exploration plan to conduct infill drilling to get a better, more defined picture of the mineralization of the deposit in order to prepare a mining plan.
Impala Platinum's Lac des Iles Mine is 60 kilometres to the northeast.
Clean Air's Gallagher is the former CEO of North American Palladium, the former owners of the Lac des Iles Mine, which was sold to Impala Platinum for $1 billion in December 2019.
