DoD awarding Talon Metals $20.6M to support exploration to discover more high-grade nickel in Michigan and Minnesota

Talon Metals, through its wholly owned subsidiary Talon Nickel (USA) LLC, has entered into a definitive agreement with the Department of Defense’s Office of Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization to accelerate and expand the company’s efforts to discover and secure additional domestic supply of nickel for the growing US battery manufacturing base and defense-related supply chains.

Utilizing Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III authorities and funds appropriated by the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, the Department of Defense will contribute funding on a cost-share basis to Talon’s in-house drilling and geophysics teams to purchase more equipment, hire additional employees and accelerate the Company’s efforts to discover and delineate more high-grade nickel deposits within the Midcontinent Rift geology of the United States.

As part of the agreement, the Department of Defense will contribute US$20,607,146 and Talon will contribute US$21,783,150 in matching funding on a cost-share basis (including, use of existing equipment and current employee cost) over a period of 39 months.

The funding aligns with the Talon and US Geological Survey (USGS) view that the Midcontinent Rift in the Lake Superior region of Minnesota and Michigan is highly prospective for nickel sulfide deposits with potential for “district scale” mineralization.

In a 1997 report, the USGS noted that similarities between rocks of the Midcontinent rift and rocks that host the Voisey Bay nickel-copper-cobalt deposit in Labrador, Canada, and the Noril’sk nickel-copper-platinum-group-metals deposits in Russia suggest a high potential for such sulfide deposits in rocks associated with the 1.1-billion-year-old Midcontinent rift in the Lake Superior region.

Occurrence of magmatic ore deposits associated with the Midcontinent Rift (MCR) in the Lake Superior region. Miller and Nicholson (2013)

Talon is currently exploring the Tamarack Intrusive Complex (TIC) in central Minnesota on a 24-hour-a-day basis with significant recent success. The TIC is an ultramafic to mafic intrusive complex that hosts nickel (Ni)-copper (Cu) sulfide mineralization with associated cobalt (Co), platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd) (PGEs) and gold (Au).

Talon also recently acquired the mineral rights contained in the historic Henry Ford Land package in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan proximate to the only operating nickel mine in the US.

Talon is a TSX-listed base metals company in a joint venture with Rio Tinto on the high-grade Tamarack Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project located in central Minnesota. The Tamarack Nickel Project comprises a large land position (18km of strike length) with high-grade intercepts outside the current resource area. Talon has an earn-in right to acquire up to 60% of the Tamarack Nickel Project, and currently owns 51%.

Resource expansion methods. Talon Metals is utilizing this suite of geophysical techniques to follow up on high-grade sulphide mineralization along the 18km strike length of the Tamarack Intrusive Complex.

Talon is focused on (i) expanding and infilling its current high-grade nickel mineralization resource prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 to shape a mine plan for submission to Minnesota regulators and (ii) following up on additional high-grade nickel mineralization in the Tamarack Intrusive Complex.

Talon has an agreement with Tesla to supply it with 75,000 metric tonnes (165 million lbs) of nickel in concentrate (and certain by-products, including cobalt and iron) from the Tamarack Nickel Project over an estimated six-year period once commercial production is achieved. (Earlier post.)

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