Thor Mining PLC (LONTHR, ASX:THR) has agreed to acquire an interest in the historically mined Kapunda copper deposit in South Australia.
A newly incorporated private Australian company, Environmental Copper Recovery (ECR), has been formed to explore the deposit.
Thor is chipping in with up to A$1.8mln of funds, initially via convertible loan notes.
Conversion of loan notes in ECR is at the sole discretion of Thor, and will result in Thor holding up to a 60% equity interest in ECR, depending on the timing of conversion and value of the convertible loan notes that Thor holds at the time.
The money will be used to pay for field test work and feasibility studies at Kapunda over the next three years.
In turn ECR has entered into an agreement to earn, in two stages, up to 75% of the rights over metals which may be recovered via in-situ recovery contained in the Kapunda deposit from Australian listed company, Terramin Australia Limited (ASX:TZN).
#THR Thor Mining moving at a pace to advance new copper project in South Australia - @ThorMining https://t.co/BkdLCh6D3V via @proactive_uk
— Ruth Gemmell (@ruth_proactive) August 2, 2017
“We are delighted to team up with the professional people of Environmental Copper Recovery in, what we expect, is to be the first of several low-cost copper opportunities in Australia,” said Mick Billing, chairman of Thor Mining.
Billing said the presence of copper at Kapunda is well documented.
“The opportunity at Kapunda is to test, at modest cost, the potential for in-situ recovery to extract the copper mineralisation. While the characteristics of the deposit, determined from reviewing historical drilling results, appear suitable for this style of extraction, hydrogeological pump testing is required for validation,” Billing explained.
"We look forward to updating the market shortly with a resource estimate and details of first steps in assessing for commercial development," he added.