Anooraq granted renewal on Platreef

Vancouver — Armed with a $3.2-million financing, Hunter Dickinson-led Anooraq Resources (ARQ-V) has been granted a 5-year exploration renewal on its Platreef platinum group metals (PGM) properties in South Africa, and has dealt an option on one of the Platreef properties.

The renewal includes an option to extend the prospecting contracts for an additional two years. The company also negotiated terms for converting the contracts to mining leases at any time during the 7-year period. Under the deal, 80% of future production from the mining leases would be subject to a royalty of 1%.

The Platreef properties, 122 sq. km in area, are in the northern limb of the famous Bushveld complex and host a 14.6-km stretch of the favourable Platreef platinum-palladium-bearing horizon.

The Platreef horizon, which appears to correlate structurally with the productive Merensky reef on the eastern and western limbs of the complex, is a steeper but wider zone, about 50 metres at its widest. After two rounds of drilling, the junior is hoping to outline a large resource minable by open-pit methods.

Plans call for construction of a PGM smelting and refining complex at nearby Pietersburg, to take ore from the Sandsloot mine of Anglo American Platinum (AAPTY-O). Anooraq’s properties adjoin the Amplats ground both to the south and to the north.

Anooraq intends to acquire a 100% interest in the project from Denver-based Pinnacle Resources (PNRR-O), which receives a 30% equity interest in the junior in return.

Anooraq also inked an agreement with privately owned African Minerals, an affiliate of Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Capital. African Minerals receives the right to earn a 50% interest in the Rietfontein property, one of the properties comprising the Platreef land package.

Rietfontein, a 29-sq.-km property, is immediately north and east of two African Minerals properties, Turfspruit and Macalacaskop, where the private company is already drilling. Immediately north of Rietfontein is the Tweetfontein Hill deposit, where Amplats has outlined a 5-million-tonne resource where total platinum group minerals plus gold grade about 5 grams per tonne, with 0.54% copper and 0.65% nickel.

On Rietfontein itself, geochemical surveys have uncovered two zones of soils enriched in copper, nickel, platinum and palladium, each following the trace of a pyroxenite intrusion along the west side of the property. The zones are 1.6 and 2 km in length, and the underlying pyroxenite is thought to be an offshoot of the Platreef horizon.