On Monday, Bluejay Mining, the publicly traded metals exploration company with active projects in Greenland and Finland, announced that it has formalized a joint venture agreement with KoBold Metals, a venture capital-funded startup in the development of machine learning for the exploration of strategic and critical metals. The two companies will work together at Bluejay’s Disko-Nuussuaq nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum magmatic massive sulphide project in Central West Greenland.
Under terms of the agreement, KoBold will earn 50 percent of the Disko-Nuussuaq exploration license through a two-stage earn-in commitment. During Stage I, sole funded at $3.4 million and due by December 31, 2022, KoBold will use its proprietary technology to conduct advanced geological and geophysical evaluation of the site to refine drill-targets. Stage II, due by December 31, 2024, stipulates either $11.6 million in sole funded drilling expenditure or 15 pre-agreed drill holes within the license area. Bluejay can maintain its 49 percent shareholding by funding its pro-rata commitment after Stage II.
“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,” said KoBold CEO Kurt House in a statement on the joint venture, and calling his firm’s technology “perfectly suited” to new resource discovery at Disko.
“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,” House added.
“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,” added Bluejay CEO Bo Stensgaard. “Disko is a project with great potential for the discovery of globally significant deposits of battery metals…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.”
All-star VC’s
KoBold, which is seeking to advance exploration geoscience by developing technology to automate decision-making in mineral exploration, counts several high-profile VC’s among its investors. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate and technology fund founded by Bill Gates and backed by Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos and Ray Dalio, is a key investor, as is Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz and Norwegian state-owned energy multinational Equinor. The company was recognized in 2021 as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and is the only mining company to have been named one of the 100 most promising private artificial intelligence (AI) companies in the world by CB Insights.
London-based Bluejay, which is listed on the Frankfurt and London (Alternative Investment Market) exchanges, counts among its major investors the London hedge fund Sand Grove Capital Management, global multi-asset class investment manager M&G, and global bank HSBC.
The Disko Project is located in the West Greenland Tertiary Igneous Province where Bluejay already holds several licenses as part of a holding of 2,897 square kilometers. The nearest major town is Ilulissat, located in mainland Greenland, 100-170 km southeast of the license areas. Ilusissat is an active hub with an airport, deep-water port facilities and various service providers, where Bluejay has had an established facility in 2016 to support its activity in West Greenland.
Previous studies conducted by Bluejay have reportedly found a robust correlation between the Norilsk massive sulphide concentration in Siberia (which is the marginal producer of nickel and palladium) and the Disko site in Greenland.
