Altus granted 10-year licence for Morocco's Agdz mine
Altus Strategies
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16:19 16/08/22
Altus Strategies announced on Tuesday that Morocco’s Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development has issued a 10-year mining licence for its wholly-owned Agdz copper and silver project.
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The AIM-traded firm said Agdz is located 14 kilometres south west of the Bou Skour copper-silver mine, in the eastern Anti-Atlas region of Morocco, although the board pointed out that resources and reserves at Bou Skour were not indicative of commercial mineralisation at Agdz.
Its Moroccan portfolio is held by its wholly-owned subsidiary Aterian Resources, which is subject to a potential vend-in and royalty generation transaction with Eastinco Mining and Exploration.
The company said the transaction remained subject to Eastinco completing its proposed admission to the London Stock Exchange’s standard list.
Altus said Agdz hosts four “significant” copper-silver prospects covering an area of around eight square kilometres.
Should the Eastinco transaction proceed, Altus said it would hold 25% of the issued share capital of Eastinco on closing, with the deal generating 14 new royalties to Altus in Morocco, and one in Rwanda.
“The granting of a mining licence for the Agdz copper-silver project in Morocco is a notable milestone for the project,” said chief executive officer Steven Poulton.
“The 10-year licence provides long-term security of tenure for Agdz, where the company has discovered a number of significant copper and silver prospects.”
Poulton noted that Agdz was one of 14 Moroccan projects to be vended by Altus to Eastinco, subject to its proposed LSE listing.
“Altus will hold royalties on all of the Moroccan projects, a royalty on a tantalum asset in Rwanda as well as 25% of Eastinco's enlarged share capital with warrants to purchase up to an additional 10%.”
At 1132 BST, shares in Altus Strategies were up 2.18% at 56.2p.