Proto Resources and Investments Ltd. announced they entered into an option agreement to acquire 50% of a nickel laterite project in the Kukes district of Albania.
Although we had a bad experience with Albania in the past with Empire Mining’s Bulqiza Project, we were happy to see the Albanian courts overruled the Government’s revocation of their licenses.
The Kukes project is formed by the Mamez and Trulli prospects, which were subject to historical drilling of 79 holes at Trulli and 10 holes at Mamez. The government owns all these historical drill results, and Proto plans to acquire the data from these past exploration programs. There obviously is no JORC-compliant resource estimate yet, so more drilling will be necessary to obtain a JORC-compliant estimate.
[image_frame style=”framed” title = “Geological map of Mamez project with outcropping lateritic nickel (red) marked” align=”left” height=”190″ width=”one_third”]http://www.caesarsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ProtoResources2.gif[/image_frame]The terms of the option are pretty straightforward; Proto acquires the option for 4 million shares, payable to the vendor and a consultancy company. When Proto exercises their option after having spent 120.000 EUR within 12 months, they’ll pay 250.000 EUR in cash and 300.000EUR in shares to the vendors to acquire a 50% equity interest in the project.
Proto is already investigating the possibility to truck the ore to nearby smelters in Kosovo and Macedonia, and has already received quotes from these smelters. Should they be able to finalize deals with the ferronickel-smelters, the Kukes-Prospect could be a very low capex-project.
[download_link link=”http://www.protoresources.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/120814-Kukes-Nickel-Laterite-Acquisition-in-Albania.pdf” target=”blank”]You can read the entire press release here (pdf).[/download_link]
Disclosure: Proto Resources and Investments Ltd. is a sponsoring company. Please see our disclaimer for current positions.
