Midland Exploration announces it has entered an agreement between Midland, its wholly-owned subsidiary, Midland Base Metals Inc., and Rio Algom Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BHP Group plc, for a new strategic alliance for the initial funding by BHP of a generative exploration phase and opportunities for joint contributions to advance nickel exploration within the Nunavik territory, Quebec.
The main objective of this Alliance is to identify, test and develop high-quality exploration targets towards the discovery of new significant nickel deposits within a large area of interest (“AOI”). BHP and Midland are combining their efforts by forming a technical steering committee (“TSC”) and pooling their large historical databases including geological, geophysical and geochemical data.
During the first phase of the Alliance, BHP will fund at 100% up to C$1,400,000 on an annual basis for a minimum of two years. Midland is acting as operator and the main objective is to generate, identify and secure, within the AOI, exploration projects to be advanced to a drill-ready stage through further exploration work. BHP may propose additional exploration work for up to C$700,000 before advancing an identified project to the second phase.
The deal between BHP and Midland comes only weeks after Tesla promised miners a “giant contract” to any firm able to extract nickel for the batteries that power his company’s electric cars in an “efficient, environmentally sustainable manner.”