Altius Minerals Corporation is pleased to announce that it has entered into a joint venture (“JV”) agreement with Anglo American with respect to its Natashquan nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum-palladium project in southern Labrador, Canada.

With an initial spend of $650,000 in 2013, Anglo American has the option to earn a 66% interest in the project, through agreed additional expenditures of $20 million over a five year period. Upon declaring a JV, Altius will also be granted a 1% net smelter returns (NSR) royalty. Anglo American will be the operator during the earn-in phase and the initial manager to the JV. Plans are in progress to commence a multifaceted field program in July.

The 256 square kilometre Natashquan Property is located approximately 140 kilometres southwest of Churchill Falls, Labrador and represents a new Ni-Cu-Co-PGE discovery in a frontier area of Labrador. Altius staked the prospect in 2007 as a follow up of reported anomalous platinum and palladium (PGE) in Late Paleoproterozoic mafic to ultramafic intrusive rocks by the Newfoundland Geological Survey in 2001. Altius subsequently completed an AeroTEM II-magnetometer survey in early 2008 that outlined EM anomalous zones. Subsequent prospecting programs investigating various coincident EM-mag targets resulted in the discovery of additional nickel-copper-PGE sulphide mineralization.

Lawrence Winter, Ph.D., P.Geo., Vice-President of Exploration for Altius, is the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 guidelines responsible for the technical data presented herein and has reviewed and approved this release. Jeff Morgan, B.Sc., P.Geo., is the qualified person, as defined by NI 43-101, responsible for project management and quality assurance/quality control at Natashquan. Complete technical details for this program including analytical procedures are described at http://altiusminerals.com/projects/natashquan.

Source: Marketwire