Gates and Bezos-backed firm signs up for Bluejay project

Under the terms of the agreement, KoBold could earn a 51% interest in the project through a two-stage earn-in.

KoBold Metals’ principal investor is climate and technology fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is overseen by Bill Gates, and whose investors include billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos.

Bluejay stated that the Stage 1 earn-in would see KoBold spend $3.4-million to sole-fund geological and geophysical evaluation of the project to refine drill targets, using its own proprietary technology, by the end of December 2022.

KoBold’s Stage 2 earn-in would see the company sole fund $11.6-million in drilling expenditure or 15 pre-agreed drill holes within the project area, before the end of December 2024.

Bluejay would maintain a 49% interest by funding its pro-rata commitments after the earn-in period.

Initial investigations at Disko-Nuussuaq date back to the discovery in 1870 of the 28 t Illukunguaq Boulder of massive sulphide assaying 7% nickel, 3% copper and 512 g/t cobalt, as well as more than 2 g/t platinum group elements. Following this, more than 30 years of exploration has resulted in a vast amount of scientific data all pointing to a process producing a globally significant accumulation of metals, said Bluejay.

The company has undertaken multiple work campaigns over several seasons with the inclusion of several state sponsored technical partners, undertaking aerial surveys, extensive geochemical sampling using modern analytical techniques with ultra-low sensitivity as well as soil gas hydrocarbon sampling.

Bluejay's assessment and investigation over the last several years has identified more than 20 drill-ready targets on licence holdings at Disko-Nuussuaq. Of the targets defined, notably, there are seven large conductive targets previously defined by Vismand Exploration and Avannaa Resources and reconfirmed by Bluejay. The two largest conductive targets are extraordinary in scale, the largest being more than 10 km long and around 2 km wide and another being around 4.8 km long and 800 m wide; both comparable in footprint to the world-class Noril'sk-Talnakh ore bodies.

Bluejay's share price traded at 11.78p a share on Monday morning.