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Brockman Mining (ASX:BCK) and Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) update farm-in and joint venture

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ASX:BCK      MCAP $222.7M
23 April 2021 13:40 (AEST)
Brockman Mining (ASX:BCK) - Chairman, Kwai Sze Hoi

Source: TradeWinds

Brockman Mining (BCK) and Mineral Resources (MIN) have signed an amended and restated farm-in and joint venture (JV) agreement.

The deed of amendment and restatement was signed through the ASX listers’ subsidiaries, Brockman Iron and Polaris Metals.

Polaris and Brockman Iron originally signed a farm-in deal in 2018 which involved Polaris earning a 50 per cent interest in the WA-based Marillana Iron Ore Project. After satisfying the earn-in obligations, the companies would enter a joint venture.

A 50 per cent interest in the Marillana Project will now be transferred to Polaris and the joint venture will officially form.

The main amendment of this deal is Brockman’s Ophthalmia Project will be included in the farm-in interest which will see a 50 per cent stake transferred to Polaris.

The Ophthalmia Project is a WA-based iron ore project and is Brockman’s most significant iron ore project outside of Marillana.

Essentially, the companies hope to develop the projects into an iron ore mining hub that produces at least 25 million tonnes of product for export.

Once the joint venture is formed, Mineral Resources’ subsidiary will begin development works at both the Marillana and Ophthalmia projects, as well as on the nearby transport and port areas.

Mineral Resources will fund this initial work with total costs estimated to be around $105 million. It’s hoped this work will accelerate the development of the iron ore projects which is currently expected to take around 42 months.

Another part of the amendment is there are no longer ‘sunset dates’ for beginning construction of transportation and port systems, or for beginning operations.

If the projects can’t be progressed due to unexpected factors, the partners have the right to dissolve the joint venture.

Brockman is up a significant 231 per cent on the back of this news, with shares trading at 8.6 cents at 1:01 pm AEST.

Meanwhile, Mineral Resources is up 1.39 per cent with shares trading at $45.68 at 1:04 pm AEST.

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