Peru-focused project developer Panoro Minerals on Thursday said an arbitration committee had confirmed that it had followed the required legal steps to cancel the Antilla joint venture (JV) agreement with Chancadora Centauro two years ago, and that it was the sole owner of the copper/molybdenum property.
Panoro CEO Luquman Shaheen told from Vancouver that the company would now move forward with a drilling programme on the property within a month, to further prove up the resource.
Shaheen said the company could in 2010 not internally finance the development of its two Peruvian projects, the Antilla project, and its flagship Cotabambas copper/gold/silver project. The company decided to enter into a JV with a partner to develop Antilla.
Under terms of the JV agreement, the privately held Centauro were to make cash payments of $8-million to the company and invest $17-million into the Antilla project in order to earn a 70% interest over a 30 month period.
Shaheen said Centauro at the time paid $1 million upon signing the accord, but the required payments of $4-million within 90 days and the final $3-million within 20 months never materialised. The $17-million investment was to be used to complete a bankable feasibility on the project.
Shaheen said bankable feasibility studies for both projects would now be simultaneously undertaken, funded internally by the company.
The Antilla project had an inferred resource of 154-million tons grading 0.47% copper and 0.009% molybdenum at a 0.25% copper cut-off. This provided for the property to hold 1.6-billion pounds of copper and 30-million pounds of molybdenum.
The company also recently updated the inferred resource at the Cotabambas project to 404.1-million tons grading 0.42% copper, 0.23 g/t gold and 2.84 g/t silver using a 0.2% copper-equivalent cut-off. This provided for 3.75-billion pounds of copper, three-million ounces of gold and 36.9-million ounces of silver.
The TSX-V-listed company’s stocks closed at 80 Canadian cents apiece on Thursday.
Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter
