Bluejay Mining and Bill Gates-backed KoBold Metals to explore solutions for EV-critical minerals in Greenland developing Disko Project.
Bluejay, the AIM and FSE listed, and OCTQB traded, exploration and development company with projects in Greenland and Finland, is announcing a joint venture agreement (‘JV’ or the ‘Agreement’) with KoBold Metals (‘KoBold’), a mineral exploration company that uses machine learning to guide exploration for new deposits rich in the critical materials for electric vehicles.
This agreement brings a globally significant partner to the Company’s Disko-Nuussuaq nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum magmatic massive sulphide project (‘Disko’ or the ‘Disko Project’) in Central West Greenland.
Kurt House, CEO of KoBold, said: “
The Disko region has seen the rare convergence of events in earth’s history that could have resulted in forming a world-class battery metal deposit.
“KoBold’s technology is perfectly suited to discovering new resources at Disko. Our proprietary library of analytical tools, Machine Prospector®, will enable effective deployment of exploration capital and maximize our chances of discovery at Disko-Nuussuaq.”
“We are excited to invest in Greenland’s emerging mineral sector and to partner with Bluejay in light of their strong track record in Greenland and the outstanding potential of the Disko project.”
Bo Stensgaard, CEO of Bluejay, said:
This Agreement is transformative for Bluejay.
“We are delighted to have a partner at the pinnacle of technical innovation for new exploration methods, backed by some of the most successful investors in the world.
“Additionally, Bluejay retains the ability to self-fund to maintain a 49% ownership through to production, providing external public investors with the opportunity of investing alongside a private investment entity of this magnitude.”
“Disko is a project with great potential for the discovery of globally significant deposits of battery metals. It is, however, this scale that necessitated a financially and technically strong partner to develop Disko.”
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“After many conversations with many groups from all over the world we are pleased to enter into partnership with a group that shares our position on fairness and providing a transparent long-term outcome for shareholders as well as being a credible and reliable partner that shares our commitment to environmental sustainability.”
“I am very pleased to say that we have achieved this now with KoBold, an organisation with the heft and technical capability to grow this project to its full commercial potential. We are extremely excited to be working with them.”
Dr. Peter Lightfoot, Technical Lead of Magmatic Systems at KoBold, said:
The Disko-Nuussuaq Property is centred in a region of extensive contaminated and metal-depleted volcanic centres where there is clear evidence for the equilibration of flood basalt magma with crustal sulfur with potential for the concentration of magmatic sulphides in shallow sub-volcanic intrusions.
“The rich inventory of government and exploration data provides an excellent starting point for KoBold to utilize proprietary technology to support exploration.”
“After working on the Noril’sk mineral system and applying the ideas to help Falconbridge with their exploration work, it is exciting to see this work come to fruition.”
Highlights
- Principal investors in KoBold include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate & technology fund, overseen by Bill Gates, and whose investors include Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, and Ray Dalio. Other investors in KoBold include Andreessen Horowitz, the premier Silicon Valley venture capital fund and Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company.
- Under the terms of the Agreement, KoBold can earn 51% of Disko through a two-stage earn-in
- Bluejay can maintain a 49% interest through proportionate funding of the project and will manage field operations during this period.
Definitive Joint-Venture Agreement Signed with KoBold Metals to explore the Disko-Nuussuaq Project, August 9, 2021
