PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Impact Minerals has inked a farm-in agreement with a subsidiary of metals miner Independence Group (IGO) over its Broken Hill nickel/copper/platinum group metals (PGMs) project, in New South Wales.

Under the terms of the agreement, IGO could earn an initial 51% in the project area by spending A$6-million on exploration over a four-year period, which would establish an unincorporated joint venture (JV) between the two companies.

IGO could spend a further A$12-million over the subsequent four years, to earn a 75% interest in the project.

Following the Stage 2 earn-in, the two companies could elect to contribute pro-rata or dilute their shareholding, which if diluted to less than 10%, will convert into a 1% net smelter royalty over the project area.

If IGO decides not to proceed with the Stage 2 earn-in, the company’s interest in the project will revert to 49%, giving Impact the majority interest.

Impact Minerals MD Dr Mike Jones said the company was pleased to partner with IGO.

“We had a number of approaches from major companies for a JV after our last major drill campaign at Broken Hill but chose IGO because of their technical capacity, in particular their deep penetrating electro-magnetic systems capability and experience, and also the way they have approached our negotiations.

“We have established that a large amount of deep drilling will be required to further explore the exciting prospects we have generated at the project and it is appropriate that a well-funded partner with excellent credentials is brought in to help fund what could be quite significant expenditures going forward.”

Jones said that the JV will allow Impact to further increase its focus on its Western Australian projects where the company has secured a drill rig for the Doonia gold project and hopes to be up and running by early December.

“In addition, we are increasingly excited about the lithium, rare earth and nickel/copper/PGM targets we identified recently at our Arkun project which is rapidly becoming a very significant project for Impact in a very under-explored part of Western Australia,” Jones said.