PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The tug-of-war between joint venture (JV) partners Broken Hill Prospecting and Cobalt Blue over the Thackaringa cobalt project, in South Australia, has intensified.
ASX-listed Broken Hill on Tuesday went to the market to reject claims by Cobalt Blue that its interest in the JV had fallen to below 5%, the minimum interest specified in the JV agreement, and was ‘deemed’ to have withdrawn from the JV, leaving Broken Hill to surrender its JV interest to Cobalt Blue.
Broken Hill on Tuesday maintained that its 30% interest in the JV remained, with the company claiming 100% legal ownership on the tenements on which the project is based, as well as holding all the base and precious metals rights to the project.
Furthermore, Broken Hill said that it was due a 2% net smelter royalty on all future production from the JV project.
The JV parties have been at odds about the Thackaringa JV after failing to agree on a suitable timeframe for bankable feasibility study (BFS) work at Thackaringa, with Cobalt Blue taking the decision to elect out of the earn-in period process of a previous farm-in agreement, which would have required a BFS by mid-2019.
Broken Hill last year issued Cobalt Blue a notice of dispute over the start of drilling activities at Thackaringa, which it said was done outside of the requisite approval process set out in the JV.
The company on Tuesday issued a new dispute notice relating to the dilution claims.