NYSE American- and TSX-listed Ivanhoe Electric has announced the signing of a binding purchase and sale agreement to acquire 2 511 ha of surface title and associated water rights at the Santa Cruz copper project, in Arizona.
The company will pay $120.5-million in installments over four-and-a-half years for the land.
Ivanhoe Electric also holds the option to acquire all the mineral titles contiguous with the acquired surface lands. Those mineral rights will be formally acquired upon the completion of scheduled payments by Ivanhoe Electric to the current mineral title holder in August 2023 and 2024. At that time, Ivanhoe Electric will have a unified land and mineral package encompassing the entire Santa Cruz project.
“Acquiring the surface land at our Santa Cruz project is a significant step towards realising our vision of developing a high-grade, low carbon dioxide footprint underground copper mine on private land,” said executive chairperson Robert Friedland.
He added that the large area of flat land was ideally suited for renewable solar energy, which the company planned to use to power Santa Cruz.
“This important transaction is the culmination of our hard work to reunite the surface land with the subsurface mineral rights we already have the option to acquire, giving Ivanhoe Electric control of a large, high-grade copper project on private land in the copper state.”