Century Iron Mines' Labec unit ups stake in Attikamagen Lake Project to 56%

Century Iron Mines (TSE:FER) said Wednesday that its Labec Century Iron Ore unit has increased its stake in the Attikamagen Lake Project joint venture with Champion Minerals (TSE:CHM) to 56 percent.

The Attikamagen Lake iron ore project straddles the boundary between the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador covering an aggregated area of approximately 345 square kilometres.

Labec Century has the further right to earn an additional 4 percent interest to increase its stake to 60 percent in the project.

"This is another important milestone toward advancing the project with the objective to production." the company said in a statement. 

"We are very pleased with the positive exploration results of Joyce Lake, the first target for direct shipping ore (DSO) production of this project, which have been published in previous months.

"We are continuing to drill to build resources and look forward to publishing more results as they become available in the coming months."

The iron ore company recently announced the appointment of Ghislain Arel as mine development executive. He will report directly to the company’s senior vice president of logistics, mine development and operations, Hubert Vallée.

Based in Montreal, Arel’s role will be to lead the supervision of mining operations, and assist in the company’s development and implementation of mining exploration plans as it brings its major iron ore bodies into production over the next five years and beyond.

Arel is a graduate engineer of Université Laval, with 17 years of experience at several mining companies and mining consulting firms.