Teck outlines detailed strategy for copper growth
The company plans to invest $3.2 billion to $3.9 billion over four years to develop four key projects.
Alaska Energy Metals (TSX: AEMC) has closed its 100% acquisition of the Angliers-Belleterre nickel-copper project in Quebec for C$2.8 million ($2.06m).
The Angliers property consists of 454 claims covering 24,182 hectares located in the Angliers and Belleterre townships in the Temiscamingue region of western Quebec near the Ontario border.
The acquisition, whose closing was announced on Friday comes as exploration companies are increasingly hunting for critical minerals deemed vital for the green energy transition. Alaska Energy Metals also announced the partial sale of its previously purchased exploration data to a subsidiary of KoBold Metals Company.
The project was first explored by INCO, the world’s largest nickel producer of the 20th century, acquired by Vale in the 1990s. AEM chief executive officer Gregory Beischer worked with INCO on the project and, almost 30 years later, returned to acquire it, the company said in an email to MINING.COM.
The Angliers-Belleterre property is underlain by komatiitic ultramafic flow rocks and differentiated gabbro rocks in a regional setting thought to be a mantle plume. The setting is similar to that of the Kambalda nickel district in Australia, AEM said.
Sampling by the Quebec government has shown that there is strongly anomalous nickel in rock samples over a 6-km-long trend.
An artificial intelligence analysis and synthesis of data was recently performed and the results highlighted the potential of both the southern and northern mineralized trends and served to focus future exploration efforts.
“We were attracted by the ultramafic flow rocks and the geologic conditions permissive for high-grade massive sulfide deposits,” Beischer said in the statement. “There are some great prospects nearby that clearly show the nickel-copper sulfide deposit-forming processes were operative in the area. It will be exciting to take a modern exploration approach to this project.”
In addition to magmatic nickel-copper deposits, the Angliers property is also prospective for gold and polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits, the company said.
The company also owns the Nikolai nickel project in Alaska.
The acquisition close was announced late Friday. By market close in Toronto on Monday, Alaska Energy Metals stock was down 4.7%. Shares had been traded 969,797 times — over seven times the average daily volume of 138,406. The company has a C$20.43 million ($15m) market capitalization.
