Nova Royalty has reached a royalty purchase agreement with a subsidiary of Boart Longyear to acquire an existing 2.4% net smelter return royalty on a part of the Twin Metals project, for up to $6m.
Under the terms of the agreement, Nova will acquire the royalty for a total consideration of $6m, in cash and common shares of the company.
Of the total consideration, the company will pay $2m as upfront payment, which includes $1.8m in cash and will issue 161,572 Nova Shares at an average price on the TSX Venture Exchange.
Also, the company has agreed to pay up to $4m in cash as additional future payments and issue its shares, subject to achievement of milestones.
Nova president and CEO Alex Tsukernik said: “The Duluth Complex is one of the world’s great metal districts and accounts for 34% of all copper reserves and 95% of all nickel reserves in the United States. The transition to electric energy from fossil fuels has become a coordinated objective of the global community.
“Twin Metals, with over 25 billion pounds of contained copper and 9 billion pounds of contained nickel, is a natural strategic source of these unique, necessary building blocks of clean energy for North America.
Twin Metals is a Minnesota-based copper-nickel-platinum group metals project
Twin Metals is a copper-nickel-platinum group metals project, located in the Duluth Complex mining camp in north-eastern Minnesota, owned by Antofagasta.
Antofagasta is a UK-based firm with equity participation in Antofagasta Minerals, the railroad from Antofagasta to Bolivia, Twin Metals in Minnesota and other exploration JVs worldwide.
The royalty area to be acquired by Nova covers nearly 18% of the combined resources in the Maturi and Maturi Southwest deposits that comprise 100% of the mine plan.
Nova is a Vancouver, British Columbia-based royalty company engaged in providing investors with exposure to copper and nickel, the building blocks of clean energy.
Tsukernik added: “Antofagasta, the owner of Twin Metals, is one of the world’s great mining companies, and we are excited to watch the project’s progress.
“Twin Metals is our first royalty acquisition in United States, and we have also initiated the process to list Nova’s shares on the US OTCQB market to enable US investors to directly invest, through Nova, into the most strategic deposits of the new energy supply chain”.
