('Bluejay' or the 'Company')
Definitive Joint-Venture Agreement Signed with KoBold Metals to explore the Disko-Nuussuaq Project
Bluejay, the AIM and FSE listed, and OCTQB traded, exploration and development company with projects in
This agreement brings a globally significant partner to the Company's Disko-Nuussuaq nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum magmatic massive sulphide project ('Disko' or the 'Disko Project') in
Highlights
● Principal investors in KoBold include
● Under the terms of the Agreement, KoBold can earn 51% of Disko through a two-stage earn-in
● Bluejay can maintain a 49% interest through proportionate funding of the project and will manage field operations during this period.
"KoBold's technology is perfectly suited to discovering new resources at Disko. Our proprietary library of analytical tools, Machine Prospector®, will enable effective deployment of exploration capital and maximize our chances of discovery at Disko-Nuussuaq.
"We are excited to invest in
"Additionally, Bluejay retains the ability to self-fund to maintain a 49% ownership through to production, providing external public investors with the opportunity of investing alongside a private investment entity of this magnitude.
"Disko is a project with great potential for the discovery of globally significant deposits of battery metals. It is, however, this scale that necessitated a financially and technically strong partner to develop Disko. After many conversations with many groups from all over the world we are pleased to enter into partnership with a group that shares our position on fairness and providing a transparent long-term outcome for shareholders as well as being a credible and reliable partner that shares our commitment to environmental sustainability. I am very pleased to say that we have achieved this now with KoBold, an organisation with the heft and technical capability to grow this project to its full commercial potential. We are extremely excited to be working with them."
Dr.
"After working on the Noril'sk mineral system and applying the ideas to help
About KoBold
KoBold's purpose is to discover and develop new ethical sources of the critical materials for electric vehicles. KoBold's objective is to make more discoveries of outstanding orebodies with fewer failures by drawing on world-class expertise in exploration geoscience and by developing full-stack exploration technology to use machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to enable highly effective exploration decision-making.
The KoBold team brings a unique group of industry-leading specialists within data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, software engineering, physics, and mathematics, coupled with well-known 'mine-finder' professionals with proven track records. Notably for the
KoBold's disruptive, innovative, in-house developed machine learning and artificial intelligence data technologies, TerraShedSM and Machine Prospector®, have been built from scratch by alumni of top
The Agreement
The true scale and complexity of Disko-Nuussuaq has always meant that Bluejay required an equally sophisticated partner, one with financial and technical capabilities that also recognised the expertise, operational knowledge, local relationships and high environmental, social and governance standards that the Bluejay team represents.
Whilst there was opportunity to pursue alternative scenarios, the Company's view was that in all likelihood this would have left Bluejay shareholders with reduced ownership exposure as well as limited longer term financial protection and transparency. It has always been the Company's approach with Disko to maximise Bluejay's ongoing ownership of an asset that the Company firmly believes has the potential to host multiple globally significant occurrences of nickel and copper.
Key Terms of the Agreement
● KoBold will earn 51% of the Disko-Nuussuaq licence holding through a two stage earn-in commitment
o Stage I: Advanced geological and geophysical evaluation of Disko-Nuussuaq to refine drill-targets using KoBold's proprietary technology,
o Stage II: Sole funding of either
o Bluejay can maintain its 49% shareholding by funding its pro-rata commitment after Stage II
● Bluejay is a well-recognised and respected partner by communities, stakeholders and regulators in
● Should KoBold complete Stage I work but not complete the drilling commitment in Stage II before
All Bluejay licence areas were selected carefully following examination of all existing and newly available data and mineralisation models and were specifically chosen due to their accessibility via wide valley systems that cut through the topography, therefore making drilling and operations feasible.
The Disko-Nuussuaq Project is hosted within the
Historical work at Disko-Nuussuaq
Initial investigations at Disko-Nuussuaq date back to the discovery in 1870 of the 28-tonne Illukunguaq Boulder of massive sulphide assaying 7% nickel, 3% copper and 512 grammes per tonne ('g/t') cobalt, as well as more than 2.0 g/t platinum group elements. Following this, more than 30 years of exploration by companies, including
Detailed geochemical mass balance calculations on the Kukunguaq Member sulphide-saturated contaminated basalt sequence indicates that between 12-16 million tons of nickel metal are missing from lavas extruded from the mantle. The most likely explanation for this is that these metals have precipitated as nickel and copper sulphides proximal to the main volcanic vents and other structural corridors which controlled the migration of magma. Bluejay licence areas cover all of the currently known contaminated and metal-depleted volcanic centres on Disko and Nuussuaq.
In addition to the magmatic sulphide mineralisation system, massive gold bearing boulders of native iron have been found on the Company's licences, specifically the 10 tonne Hammer Dal Boulder providing another significant target for iron-nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group elements-gold mineralisation.
Bluejay has undertaken multiple work campaigns over several seasons with the inclusion of several state sponsored technical partners, undertaking aerial surveys, extensive geochemical sampling utilising the most modern analytical techniques with ultra-low sensitivity as well as soil gas hydrocarbon sampling. These new "deep-penetrating" geochemical and gas surveys have for the first time provided metal anomaly signals coincident with previously identified large-scale geophysical responses.
Bluejay's assessment and investigation over the last several years has identified more than 20 drill-ready targets on licence holdings at Disko-Nuussuaq. Of the targets defined, notably, there are seven large conductive targets previously defined by Vismand Exploration and Avannaa Resources and reconfirmed by Bluejay. The two largest conductive targets are extraordinary in scale, the largest being more than 10.0 kilometres ('km') long and around 2.0 km wide and another being around 4.8 km long and 800 metres ('m') wide; both comparable in footprint to the world-class Noril'sk-Talnakh ore bodies.
Details on the potential analogue Norilsk nickel district
● The copper-nickel-platinum group metal deposits at Noril'sk-Talnakh are located at a depth of 500-to 1,500m beneath surface in a series of flood basalts and sedimentary rocks. The massive sulphide orebodies are hosted within the Talnakh intrusive complex. The ores range from Ni-rich contact ores with Cu, Co Pt, Pd, Rh, and Au, footwall and hanging wall Cuprous ores rich in Cu and precious metals with some Ni and Co, and disseminated sulphide mineralization.
● The most recent reserve estimates by Noril'sk Nickel estimate proven and probable ore reserves totalling 663.1 million tonnes ('Mt'), containing 6.0 Mt of nickel, 11.4 Mt of copper and 117.5 million ounces ('Moz') of platinum group metals. Reserves are reportedly sufficient to support 80 years of output. Measured and indicated ore resources are in the order of a stunning 1,702.9 Mt containing 11.6 Mt of nickel, 22 Mt of copper and 257.3 Moz of platinum group metals.
Source: MMC Norilsk Nickel, Annual Report 2020.
● It is estimated that since mining started in 1940, the Norilsk district has produced a total of 8.3 Mt of nickel, 16.3 Mt of copper, 178 Moz of platinum group metals, and 3.1 Moz of gold from 691 Mt of ore. After adjusting for mining and processing losses, the total pre-mined resource for the district camp is estimated to be 2,800 Mt at 0.9% nickel, 1.7% copper, 6.0 g/t platinum group metals and 0.2 g/t gold (Table 1).
● Comparing global reserves plus resources the Norilsk camp contains 15% of the global resource of sulphide nickel, 27% of the total global palladium resource, and 30% of the global resource of magmatic sulphide-hosted copper.
● Based on the above estimates of combined reserves, resources, and historic production, the total value of the ores in the Norilsk district in 2020 metal prices is
Source: Barnes et al. 2020: Introduction to a Special Issue on the Norilsk-Talnakh Ni-Cu-Platinum Group Element Deposits. Economic Geology, Bulletin of the
FIGURE 1: Diagram showing well known nickel-sulphide deposits/mining districts. The expected grade tonne range for Disko indicated inside the transparent blue ellipsoid, based on mass balance of depleted lavas. Source for the background data/original diagram: Lesher & Houlé 2015: Magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE Mineralization in
Link to Figure 1 http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/9278H_1-2021-8-8.pdf
Licence position at Disko-Nuussuaq
Bluejay's 2,897 square kilometre ('km²') Disko-Nuussuaq holding includes several separate licences awarded by the Government of
FIGURE 2: Map showing the current licence holdings at Disko-Nuussuaq.
Link to Figure 2 http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/9278H_2-2021-8-8.pdf
The first licence holdings at Disko-Nuussuaq were purchased by Bluejay in 2017 from
The initial licence holding at Disko-Nuussuaq was expanded by Bluejay in 2017, 2018 and 2020 to the current total holding of 2,897 km². The Bluejay licence holdings are concentrated over the most prospective settings/contaminated basalt, as well as targeting the larger fault-systems & magmatic pathways. Bluejay's land holdings also host most of the previously recognized magmatic sulphide and native iron boulders and native iron occurrences. Moreover, the Bluejay licence ground was acquired in areas where valleys incised into the flood basalts that reduces the drill depth to potentially mineralized subvolcanic intrusions. All licences have access to a deep-water fjord or deep open water and can be operated from either land or boat/barge-based camps.
From the later part of 2019 and into 2021 Disko-Nuussuaq has seen a licence acquisition "race" that means that Bluejay's first-mover holdings have been surrounded by other licence holders and, notably, Anglo American holds an area of almost 10,000 km².
The northern coast of Disko island has seen earlier mining operations when the
The nearest major town to the holdings at Disko-Nuussuaq is Ilulissat which is located in mainland
Bluejay, and its 100% owned subsidiaries
Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure
Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.
For further information please visit http://www.bluejaymining.com or contact:
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+44 (0) 20 7907 9314 |
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+45 2367 8067 |
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+1 403 813 1830 |
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+44 (0) 20 7907 9326 |
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(Nominated Adviser) |
+44 (0) 20 3470 0470 |
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(Nominated Adviser) |
+44 (0) 20 3470 0470 |
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Blytheweigh |
+44 (0) 20 7138 3205 |
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Blytheweigh |
+44 (0) 20 7138 3205 |
Notes
Bluejay is listed on the London AIM market and
Its most advanced project is the
Bluejay holds two additional projects in
**ENDS**