Century Iron Mines and WISCO International Resources Development & Investment have formed a joint venture aimed at injecting $40 million into the Sunny Lake iron project in Canada.
The funding will see WISCO Sunny Lake reimburse Century Iron for exploration expenditures to date as well as paying for new exploration at the project. Once the payments are received, Century will own a 60% share and WISCO 40%.
The two companies have formed a management committee for the Sunny Lake JV to oversee exploration and development of the project. Operations will be carried out by WISCO Century Sunny Lake Iron Mines which is the operator company incorporated by Century and WISCO Sunny Lake to carry out the joint venture operations at the project site.
Century Iron’s president Sandy Chim says, “The proceeds of WISCO’s investment under the Sunny Lake Joint Venture agreement will help to both advance our exploration at the Sunny Lake Project and enable us to complete a preliminary economic analysis on the Full Moon deposit and explore the direct shipping ore (DSO) targets on the property. We continue to believe that the Full Moon deposit and the DSO targets offer the potential to be a strategic development project well positioned to fulfill the needs of WISCO International as our strategic end user.”
The Sunny Lake project is in the western margin of the Labrador Trough which extends for more than 1000km in Quebec. Century Iron is Canada’s largest holder of iron ore land claims, with interests in several properties in the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.
The company has two key strategic partners in WISCO and Minmetals Exploration & Development which are both state-owned Chinese companies with the financial and technical resources to assist with funding and technical expertise for the exploration and development of its iron ore projects.
WISCO holds an approximate 25% interest in Century Iron. It is a major subsidiary of Wuhan Iron & Steel (Group) Corporation headquartered in Wuhan in China’s Hubei province, one of the top three state-owned iron and steel groups with a 2011 output of 38 million tonnes of steel.