Cadillac Ventures closes sale of Spanish joint venture

Cadillac Ventures (CVE:CDC) said on Tuesday it completed the divestiture of a 90 percent stake in its Spanish joint venture for $2.5 million as it focuses on its Thierry project in northwest Ontario.
Toronto-based Cadillac Ventures said in a statement it obtained both shareholder and TSX Venture Exchange approval.
The junior mineral explorer entered into a letter agreement with Iberian Minerals (CVE:IZN) to unload the venture on April 23.
Cadillac, which owns the past producing Thierry Mine near Pickle Lake, Ontario, purchased its 90 percent interest in the venture under an agreement with Minas de Aguas Tenidas in December 2008.
The deal with Minas, a unit of Iberian Minerals Corp, included 14 properties totalling about 232 square kilometres within the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt of southern Spain.
The $2.5 million price tag is being shelled-out in three instalments with the final $1 million payment due within 15 days.
Iberian is an affiliated entity of Trafigura Beheer B.V., which, indirectly owns or controls, approximately 25 percent of Cadillac's outstanding shares.
Cadillac's Thierry project hosts two NI 43-101 compliant resources at the Thierry mine and the K1-1 deposit.
Earlier this month, the junior miner announced Tuesday what it called a "positive" preliminary economic assessment (PEA) report for its Thierry project.
The company said the NI 43-101 PEA report, prepared by P&E Mining Consultants, showed the "technical and potential economic viability" of re-opening the Thierry mine and processing material from both the underground and open pit deposits, on a combined basis.
At a 15,000 tonne per day mining rate, the project would produce a total of 5.25 million tonnes per year, comprised of 3.85 million tonnes from open pit, and 1.4 million tonnes from the underground operation.
The preliminary report showed a pre-tax net present value of $380 million using a six per cent discount rate, allowing for a 10 per cent contingency on operating costs and a 15 per cent contingency on capital costs, the company said.
The internal rate of return, on a pre-tax basis, was calculated at 19 per cent, with a life-of-mine NSR revenue total of $3.7 billion.
Total estimated capital costs were seen at $843 million, or $11.93 per tonne, with a payback period of four years from the start of commercial production on pre-production capital.
The Thierry Mine is a past producing mine, with a recently updated resource estimate consisting of 8.8 million tonnes measured and indicated grading 1.66% copper, 0.19% nickel, 4 g/t silver, 0.05 g/t gold, 0.04 g/t platinum and 0.13 g/t palladium.
The deposit, which remains open at depth and to the west, also hosts 14.9 million tonnes inferred grading 1.64% copper, 0.16% nickel, 6.4 g/t silver, 0.10 g/t gold, 0.07 g/t platinum, 0.21 g/t palladium, using a cut-off NSR of C$41/tonne.
Meanwhile, the open pit K1-1 deposit, which also saw a resource update in February, consists of 53.61 million tonnes inferred, grading 0.38% copper, 0.10% nickel, 1.8 g/t silver, 0.03 g/t gold, 0.05 g/t platinum, and 0.14 g/t palladium, at an NSR cut-off of C$11/tonne.
The K1-1 is an open-pit, large tonnage, low grade deposit located approximately three kilometres from the past producing Thierry Mine.
The miner’s stock closed Monday at 15 cents each on the TSX Venture Exchange.