News

June 19, 2008

Altius Minerals Stays Ahead Of The Junior Mining Pack With Its Moves Into Energy

By Charles Wyatt

Brian Dalton, chief executive of Toronto listed Altius Minerals, is one of the lateral thinkers of the mining world with a bit of forward thinking mixed in - a rare combination. His company describes itself modestly enough as a natural resource project generation and royalty business based in the province of Newfoundland & Labrador, but it's much more than that. Just to demonstrate the forward thinking, back in 2003 Brian acquired a 10 per cent interest in the Labrador Nickel Royalty Limited Partnership, which owns a three per cent net smelter return royalty in the Voisey's Bay nickel district. Altius' royalty entitled it to a share of revenues less certain costs incurred after concentrates leave the mine site for final processing. At that time, however, there was no production at Voisey’s Bay and it had been delayed for various reasons, so this was a risky move for what was then quite a small company.

2006 was the first full year of mining operations at Voisey's Bay and Altius realized in excess of US$4 million in revenues.  At that time conservative long-term metal price forecasts of US$3.25 per pound for nickel, US$0.90 per pound for copper and US$7.00 per pound for cobalt were in general circulation. On those numbers Altius stood to make over US$1 million per year over an initial 25-year mine life. These prices are now US$10.95 per pound, US$3.70 per pound and US$45 per pound...