Canadian Royalties and Ungava battle over ground

Vancouver — The inclusion of a key piece of ground into the promising Phoenix nickel-copper-platinum-palladium property in northern Quebec has created a rift between Ungava Minerals and Canadian Royalties (CZZ-V).

Sparking the dispute is a 400-ha piece of land that borders Canadian Royalties’ wholly-owned Phoenix property and Ungava Minerals’ Expo Ungava property, in which Canadian Royalties can earn an 80% stake.

On April 7, Ungava Minerals sent notice to Canadian Royalties that the junior was in default of their option and joint venture agreement because that border area, which includes the Mesamax NW grid and TK copper-nickel platinum-palladium discovery, was subsequently included into the Phoenix property.

Canadian Royalties claims that the land in question was properly transferred by Ungava Minerals when the Expo-Ungava property was expanded and the boundary repositioned in June of last year. The Val D’Or Quebec-based junior states that the allegations by Ungava Minerals are frivolous and wholly without merit.

Canadian Royalties hit significant platinum-palladium mineralization in the TK area of the Phoenix property last year. Lying some 20-km south of Falconbridge’s (FL-T) Raglan mine in Nunavik, hole 4 cut the most significant mineralized lens. Drilled a minus 85 degrees, this hole hit 2.7% nickel, 0.78% copper, 0.13% cobalt and 2.67 grams combined platinum-palladium-gold per tonne over 5.4 metres from 128 metres down-hole. Just below the massive sulphide intercept, a 1.15 metre section ran 6.48 grams combined platinum-palladium-gold.

This marks only the third massive sulphide discovery containing significant copper-nickel values in the South Raglan trend (a 150-km belt of basalt and ultramafic rocks). The first being Falconbridge’s Delta deposit (1.02 million tonnes grading 2.62% nickel, 1.1% copper and 2.25 grams combined platinum-palladium) and the second Canadian Royalties’ Expo Ungava deposit (17.1 million tonnes grading 0.6% nickel and 0.81% copper).

The new find lies 6-km east of the Expo-Ungava deposit. Mineralization is associated with disseminated, net-textured and even massive sulphides within, and adjacent to, an ultramafic host. The holes define a broad zone of platinum-palladium-gold and sulphide mineralization that extends from surface to a vertical depth of 130 metres and stretch in a north-south direction for some 75 metres.

The ultramafic host at the TK Area represents the same ultramafic body that extends easterly to the Mesamax Northwest and Mesamax Main platinum-group-metal (PGM) zones.

Lying on 15-km south of the Raglan nickel mine and mill complex, the Expo-Ungava property hosts three mineralized zones discovered in the 1960s– the Expo, Cominga and Mesamax zones. Work by Amax Minerals on the Expo prospect in the 1970’s led to a resource of 19 million tons grading 0.47% nickel and 0.51% copper with significant cobalt and precious metal credits. Included in that resource are 4.2 million tons grading 0.75% nickel and 0.85% copper considered amenable to open pit mining at a waste-to-ore ratio of 2.75-to-1. Explored over a strike length of 900 metres, mineralization consists of disseminated pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and pentlandite in a serpentinite intrusive rock. In addition, previous work identified seven other mineralized zones and 11 airbourne anomalies.

Canadian Royalties subsequently recalculated the resource, which now stands at 17 million tonnes grading 0.6% nickel and 0.8% copper, which includes a higher-grade core of some 3 million tonnes grading 1% nickel and 1% copper.