Canadian junior exploration company Giyani Metals has reached an agreement to sell its 45% interest in a privately held South African gold exploration company for R9.56-million, or about C$868 000, the company announced on Thursday.
The sale of its interest in Rock Island Trading 17 to its partner, State-owned Corridor Mining Resources (CMR), signifies the firm’s formal departure from its gold exploration past in South Africa.
The company previously planned to explore gold deposits in the Archean greenstone belt, in Limpopo. Its focus was the Rock Island project, which comprised two prospecting rights across four properties, which contained six previously producing gold mines.
Its focus now is on growing its battery-grade manganese project, in neighbouring Botswana, to serve the growing global electric vehicle market.
Giyani recently published the results of a preliminary economic assessment for the K.Hill manganese project, which determined that it has a value of $285-million.
Giyani will have to invest about $141.3-million in capital expenditure on the project, which is expected to produce about 245 000 t of high-purity electrolytic manganese metal over a nine-year operating life.
“We are extremely pleased to have concluded this sale to our South African partner CMR. Rock Island was a noncore asset that we have had on our books for a very long time and we are very happy to have been able to now monetize its value into cash consideration that will be used for the development of our manganese project in Botswana,” said CEO Robin Birchall.