Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major Rio Tinto’s exploration arm has reached a $31.5-million earn-in and joint venture (JV) agreement with ASX-listed junior Raiden Resources, over its project holding in Serbia.
The earn-in and JV agreement covers Raiden’s Zapadni Majdanpek, Majdanpek Pojas and Donje Nevlje exploration licences, which are all located within the Western Tethyan Metallogenic belt, which hosts a number of tier-one copper/gold porphyry deposits.
Under the terms of the agreement, Rio will spend an initial $2.5-million over the first three years to earn a 51% participating interest in the JV project area, with a minimum spend of $500 000 required within the first 12 months.
A further $9-million will be spent over the following three-year period, allocating Rio a further 14% interest, for a total participating interest of 65%. The major could then increase its shareholding to 75%, by spending a further $20-million over the following three years.
“We welcome Rio Tinto as a partner through this earn-in and JV agreement on our selected licences. Rio delivers a tremendous depth of experience in these styles of mineralisation and a commitment to the Western Tehyan belt, together with funding capacity to unlock the potential of world-class projects,” said Raiden executive director Dusko Ljubojevic.
“In our opinion, this validates the prospectivity of our licences and we look forward to working closely with the Rio team and realising the potential of the JV properties. It also enables us to focus on exploration in our retained licences to rapidly deploy our planned exploration programme.”