Final Payments Paid – 100% Ownership Complete Iron-T Vanadium-Iron-Titanium Project, Quebec
NEWS RELEASE
Final Payments Paid – 100% Ownership Complete Iron-T Vanadium-Iron-Titanium Project, Quebec
Vancouver, BC – Thursday March 11th 2010, 4:30 a.m. PDT
Apella Resources Inc. (TSX.V Symbol – APA); (Frankfurt Symbol – NWN), and its Board of Directors are pleased to announce that the Company has completed all of its payment and exploration commitments to earn a 100% interest in its Iron-T Project.
Under the Purchase Agreement announced in February 2008, on the initial 17 claims at Iron-T, Apella committed to acquire a 100 % interest in the Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron Project by paying the vendors $250,000.00 cash and 900,000 common shares of Apella. All of the share and cash payments are now complete and the final traunch of $90,000.00 cash and 300,000 common shares was paid on February 15th, 2010. The 300,000 shares issued were subject to a four month hold period. A 3% Net Smelter Return (“NSR”), of which Apella may purchase at its discretion, 1 ½ % (one half) of the NSR for $500,000, has been set aside in favour of the Vendors. Apella also retains a First Right of Refusal on the balance of the NSR. Apella had also committed to carry out a minimum of $500,000 of exploration and has since fulfilled this obligation as well. Apella and the Vendors have also entered into an Area of Influence Agreement whereby any mineral claims, acquired by either Apella or the Vendors, within 2 miles of the boundaries of the initial 17 claims will automatically be included in the Iron-T Project. Since the Purchase Agreement was executed, both Apella and the Vendors have applied for all the available claims of immediate interest, adjoining or nearby the Iron-T project. The new claims will all be added to the Iron-T Project.
To date, Apella has enlarged the initial 17-claim property acquired to the current total of 145 claims. Apella has carried out two successful diamond drill programs, ground geophysics, extensive line cutting, and considerable trench sampling on its Iron-T project. The Company is awaiting the assay results of its recent diamond drilling program and planning for its next round of drilling. The Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property is located in the Matagami area in the west-central part of the Province of Quebec, Canada, approximately 780 km north of Montreal.
The geological setting and mineralization encountered on Apella’s 100% owned Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property located in the Bell River Complex indicates many similarities with typical world-class magmatic Fe-Ti-V oxide deposits associated with a layered intrusive complex. Most of these deposits are associated with mafic-ultramafic layered complexes such as the Lake Doré Complex in Chibougamau, Quebec; the Windimurra Complex in Australia; the Panzhihua layered intrusion in China and the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The 6.5 km thick sequence of the Bushveld complex is the largest layered mafic intrusion in South Africa. About 39.5% of total world vanadium production (55 700 t in 2006 (USGS, 2006)) comes from the Bushveld Complex. The V-Fe-Ti oxide ores at Bushveld form concordant layers varying from 0.1 to 10 m in thickness within the Upper Zone but most of these layers are relatively thin and less than 30 cm in thickness. The lower contact of individual layers with their footwall is usually sharp. The upper contacts of individual layers are often gradational and show a gradual decrease of oxide content in the rock. Furthermore, oxide-rich layers are rarely composed entirely of Fe-Ti oxide and some layers or portion of layers may be composed of a fair amount of silicates.
“The economically important Main Magnetite Layer varies from 1.0 to 2.5 m in thickness and covers a strike length of 200 km in the western Bushveld Complex and 120 km in the Eastern Bushveld Complex (Reynolds, 1985).” The Rhovan mine of Xstrata Alloys is a primary vanadium producer situated within the Western Lobe of the Bushveld Complex. The mine is located some 35 km ENE of Rustenburg, South Africa. The vanadium mineral resource and ore reserve of Rhovan mine reported by Xstrata Alloys as of September 2007 (Xstrata Alloys, 2008) are:
Proved Ore Reserves – 39.2 Mt @ 0.51% V2O5 Probable Ore Reserves – 10.5 Mt @ 0.53% V2O5 Measured Mineral Resources – 64.4 Mt @ 0.51% V2O5 Indicated Mineral Resources – 13.7 Mt @ 0.53% V2O5 Inferred Mineral Resources – 124.9 Mt @ 0.51% V2O5”
The Lake Doré Complex is a Bushveld-type Archean layered mafic intrusion (Allard, 1976) located some 250 km due east of Matagami in the Chibougamau mining camp. The Lake Doré Complex is the most advanced project and the largest vanadium deposit in North America. It shows a geological setting and vanadiferous mineralization similar to the Bell River Complex. The Lake Doré Complex is 5 to 7 km in thickness and has been subdivided into three main units from base to top: The Lower Serie including the Anorthosite Zone; the Layered Serie; and the Upper Serie which includes the Granophyre and the Border Zone (Daigneault and Allard, 1990). The mineralized zones form a 50 to 200 m thick sequence within the Layered Serie. The sequence comprises ferrogabbro, ferropyroxenite and magnetite and hosts the highest grades of vanadium mineralization. Mineralized oxide horizons are also characterized by heterogeneous and rhythmic distribution within the Layered Serie (Taner, Ercit and Gault, 1998) and a gradual upward decrease of vanadium content and gradual upward increase of ilmenite (Daigneault and Allard, 1990). The magnetite horizons vary from 50 to 200 m in thickness and extend for 16 km along strike as inferred from airborne magnetic data. The Lake Doré Vanadium deposit at Chibougamau is estimated to 100.0 Mt grading 0.49% V2O5 including 32.2 Mt of measured resources at 0.65% V2O5 (Girard and Allard, 1998).
Apella has concluded that similarities between the Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property and typical world class vanadium deposits associated to layered mafic to ultramafic intrusions justifies an series of aggressive exploration programs dedicated to the project. Future exploration programs will be designed to further define prospective areas of vanadiferous mineralization within the Upper zone of the Bell River Complex. Since the vanadium content is closely correlated with iron contents of the host rock, magnetic geophysical methods are considered to be the most effective and inexpensive approach to locate favourable horizons that may indicative of vanadiferous mineralization.
The Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property is located in the Matagami area in the west-central part of the Province of Quebec, Canada, approximately 780 km north of Montreal. Matagami, situated in the administrative region of Northern Quebec, is the major town in the area and can provide housing, servicing, supplies, consumables and transport facilities including railway access for an efficient mining operation. Hydro from James Bay is nearby.
Apella invites the public to visit its NEW website at http://www.Apellaresources.com or e-mail us at [email protected] to be added to the Company’s e-mail list for press releases and updates.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF APELLA RESOURCES INC.
“Patrick D. O’Brien”
Patrick D. O’Brien – Chairman
S.E.C.Exemption12(g)3-2(b) File No. 82-3822, Standard & Poors Listed, Dun & Bradstreet Listed.
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