Rio’s Kennecott abandons Mexico JV with junior Azure
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The share price of junior Azure Minerals tumbled by 17% on Friday after a subsidiary of Rio Tinto abandoned a potential copper/gold/silver joint venture project, in Mexico.
The subsidiary, Kennecott Exploration Mexico, had been conducting exploration programmes over the Promotorio asset since early 2015, and had to date spent some A$4-million on exploration. However, it has advised Azure that it will not complete the Stage 2 earn-in commitments, which would have seen Kennecott secure a 51% shareholding in the project area.
Azure told shareholders on Friday that while the results of Kennecott’s exploration work have confirmed the prospectivity of the Promotorio asset, including the presence of a copper mineralised porphyry system, the results do not meet Rio’s requirements for further exploration work.
“We believe that the extensive exploration conducted by Kennecott over the last two years, at no cost to Azure, has significantly advanced the project and has provided an outstanding set of data on which future programmes will be based,” said Azure MD Tony Rovira.
“Kennecott’s drilling confirmed the project hosts a large, well-developed copper-mineralised porphyry system. All drilling to date has been focused in the centre of the project area, which contains the Promotorio and Cascada copper/gold/silver deposits. However, the majority of the property is covered by post-mineral volcanic rocks and remains relatively unexplored.”
Azure, which has regained full ownership of the project, has now resumed operational control of Promotorio and is currently assessing the drilling and exploration data provided by Kennecott before making plans for the next stage of exploration.
Azure shares traded at 1.9c a share on Friday, down from the previous day’s closing price of 2.3c a share.
Comments
The
content
you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.
If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.
If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.
For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation