Platinum Group Metals Creates New Funded Platinum Joint Venture
September 15th, 2008 | by mantrionline |Platinum Group Metals Ltd. announces the creation of a new exploration joint venture adjoining the Xstrata plc Eland Platinum Project area at the eastern end of the prolific Western Bushveld Complex in South Africa. Platinum Group Metals has been granted a 8.290 square kilometre mineral rights position by filing prospecting permit applications with the Department of Minerals and Energy. A further 2.772 square kilometers have also been applied for and are pending review and approval (see map attached). A new platinum company Sable Platinum (Pty) Ltd. (”Sable”) has been formed by Allan Hochreiter (Pty) Ltd a mining corporate finance company, based in Johannesburg, headed up by James Allan and renowned platinum analyst Rene Hochreiter. Sable has the right to earn a 51% interest in the joint venture by spending 51 million rand (approximately $US6.2m) in exploration costs over 5 years. A private empowerment group will hold 26% and Platinum Group Metals will operate the exploration program and retain a 23% interest when the earn-in is complete.
R. Michael Jones President of Platinum Group Metals Ltd. “We are very pleased to see the first product of our new business initiatives program emerge, at scale funded by a strong qualified partnership. The Sable Joint Venture is right in the cross hairs of the new industry focus on shallow ounce potential rather than deep, given costs, prices and electrical supply constraints.”
Rene Hochreiter of Sable Platinum said “We are pleased to work with Platinum Group Metals and start work immediately. We have the advantage to operate our program using an experienced exploration team at Platinum Group Metals that quickly turned their main Western Bushveld Joint Venture to account as operator”.
The platinum bearing layers of the Western Bushveld Complex are known to extend across the property position. A highly fragmented surface rights and mineral rights situation with hundreds of owners had inhibited work in the past. The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (No 28 of 2002) (”MPRDA”), converted this area into 100% state ownership, just as it is in most mining jurisdictions. In this way the MPRDA is providing new opportunity to the industry exactly as it intended.
The initial phase of field work to target areas for drilling has started. Drilling is expected to commence before the end of the year.
