May 3 2021
Major Precious Metals Corp. has provided an update on the latest developments in Greenland with respect to mining and exploration activities and their possible effect on the Skaergaard Project.
Image Credit: ElRoi/Shutterstock.com
Major Precious Metals is in the process of scheduling a huge diamond drilling program on its Skaergaard Project beginning in late June to early July 2021 and more details on these will be announced shortly.
In Greenland, the recent election results have led to a new coalition government that continues to significantly support the mining and exploration developments in the nation. This has been apparent with the full support and the recent conditional approval of the company’s drilling and exploration plans for the Skaergaard project by the Greenland Mineral Licencing and Safety Authority (MLSA).
Major Precious Metals has been directly working with the MLSA in relation to its forthcoming drilling programs and the feedback has been quite positive. Final approvals are anticipated as soon as the final drilling plans and the related documentation have been sanctioned by the MLSA staff.
International Funding for Greenland Strategic or Critical Minerals Projects
Greenland continues to be a low-risk, stable, and pro-mining jurisdiction with powerful financial support from North American and European finance agencies and institutional banks, and also from organizations backed by European and Greenlandic governments. In addition, Greenland is strategically situated with direct access to both the European and North American markets.
Letters of Intent (LOI) were recently signed by global mining firms with advanced projects in Greenland, such as Bluejay Mining plc (Bluejay) and Ironbark Zinc Limited (Ironbark) to acquire low-interest debt financing with conducive loan terms from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) to offer the required capital to progress their mining projects through the bankable feasibility phase.
EXIM is an independent Executive Branch agency and is the official export credit agency of the United States with a goal to support American jobs by easing the export of U.S. goods and services.
On November 2nd, 2020, Ironbark announced that it had obtained an LOI from EXIM for the provisional sum of US$216 million in debt financing for its Citronen Zinc-Lead Project situated in northern Greenland.
Under the LOI, Ironbark can choose either a Direct or Guaranteed Loan. For the Direct Loan option, the interest rate is set at the Commercial Interest Reference Rate (CIRR)—the official lending rate of export credit agencies. The present CIRR for transactions with an 8.5-year repayment period is 1.46%.
On February 15th, 2021, Bluejay announced that it had obtained an LOI from EXIM for the provisional sum of US$208 million in debt financing under analogous terms for their Dundas Ilmenite Project (titanium dioxide) situated in northwest Greenland.
As of now, Ironbark has continued with the EXIM loan process. Bluejay continues to investigate the EXIM eligibility criteria and has also progressed discussions with European Export Credit Agencies and other conventional commercial lenders to guarantee maximum quality and the most favorable commercial terms available for the advancement of its Dundas Project.
EXIM has been tactically investing in Greenlandic mining projects because of the rich critical or strategic minerals within some of the world’s largest undeveloped mineral deposits. Such critical and strategic minerals include platinum group metals (platinum and palladium), zinc-lead-copper, rare earth elements (REE), gallium, vanadium, titanium, and many others that are generally found across Greenland.
Such commodities qualify as critical minerals because they have been deemed crucial to the national and economic security of the United States. Large quantities of many of these critical metals are found in the Skaergaard Project. These include platinum, palladium, gallium, titanium, and vanadium.
As Major Precious Metals builds the Skaergaard Project across the forthcoming months, it could be strategically positioned to capitalize on these funding sources from the U.S. and European export credit agencies to develop the Skaergaard Project through the mining feasibility phase in a manner that uses strategic capital in a non-dilutive way for shareholders and also supports the economics of this project itself.