Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) (TSX: AEM) (“Agnico Eagle”), recently announced a strategic investment of 8.4 million dollars in Canada Nickel Company Inc. (CSE: CNC) (OTCQB: CNIKF), a junior exploration, development and application company focused on nickel-cobalt Projects in Canada.
This investment is viewed as an important step forward in Agnico Eagle’s goal of becoming a leading supplier of high quality metals in North America. The 8.4 million will be distributed via a private placement of 16,825,000 common shares in Canada Nickel at a purchase price of $0.50 per share.
With this investment, Agnico Eagle gains a strategic option to acquire a 19.9 percent interest in Canada Nickel’s option to purchase the Crow’s Nest Nickel-Cobalt-Scandium Project in the mining friendly region of Northwestern Ontario. Agnico Eagle also gains an option to fund Canada Nickel’s development and exploration of its promising portfolio, expanding its presence in the nickel-cobalt market.
The Crow’s Nest Project is situated within the prolific Timmins-Cochrane mining camps and is home to numerous past and active producing nickel, gold, copper and base metal mines. This project is expected to greatly benefit from the growing demand for nickel and other strategic metals. Canada Nickel also holds the Crawford Nickel-Cobalt sulfide project in a region well known for its past producing Nickel mines.
Commenting on the news, Sean Boyd the Chief Executive Officer of Agnico Eagle said, “We are very pleased to have invested in Canada Nickel. We view this as a unique opportunity to gain exposure to the rapidly expanding nickel and cobalt markets, through attractive exploration properties. Nickel is an important metal in the production of rechargeable batteries prepared for electric vehicles and this investment underlines our commitment to diversity and sustainability.”
The Board of Directors of Canada Nickel commented, “We are extremely pleased to have the support of Agnico Eagle with their Corpus of 8.4 million dollars. This investment validates our strategy and will help fund the advancement of our promising portfolio of projects.”
This new strategic alliance is sure to be a boon for both Agnico Eagle and Canada Nickel. The agreement is expected to help both companies to become future leaders in the growing global nickel and cobalt mining industry.
