Breakaway Resources has signed a joint venture agreement worth $8 million with Sandfire Resources, to explore the Altia base metals project in north-west Queensland.

Breakaway announced today that Sandfire had agreed to spend $4 million over three years to earn a 60 per cent interest in the project, with the option to increase its stake to 80 per cent through spending of an additional $4 million over three years.

Sandfire also agreed to acquire a 6.3 per cent stake in Breakaway for $600,000.

Previous exploration in 2010 and 2011 at the broader Altia project showed a broad system of silver, lead and zinc.

Other deposits across the tenement area are prospective for copper, Breakaway said.

Breakaway managing director Victor Rajasooriar said the company was thrilled to have secured an agreement with Sandfire.

"After looking at it with a fresh set of eyes with Sandfire, we believe that the Altia deposit may form part of a much larger mineralised trend which offers multiple targets for a major new discovery," Mr Rajasooriar said.

"With the injection of funding and technical know-how from Sandfire, the newly established joint venture will be in a much stronger position to assess the project and appropriately target its exploration activities with a view to identifying a sizeable new discovery."

Mr Rajasooriar said the funding injection would also help the company move to the next stage of evaluating its Sandy Creek copper project , also in Queensland.

At 10:30AM, WST, Breakaway stocks were up 43.7 per cent, trading at 2.3 cents.