Sirius signs offtake deal with Glencore

Sirius Resources has sold off all of the nickel and copper it plans to produce out of its Nova mine in the first three years, after signing an offtake agreement with Glencore today.

Glencore will be supplied with 50 per cent of Nova’s forecast nickel sulphide concentrate production for the first three years of the mine's life, with mining to begin late next year.

Concentrate will be trucked by road from the Nova mine site in the Fraser Range to either Esperance or Geraldton port for export.

Sirius has signed offtake agreements with BHP Billiton and Dutch commodity trading company Trafigura for the other half of Nova’s planned nickel production over the same three-year period.

“The commercial terms of the offtake agreement are confidential but, as with the previous two offtake agreements with BHP and Trafigura, they reflect the anticipated exceptionally high quality of the Nova nickel and copper concentrates, which have very low levels of deleterious elements,” Sirius said in a statement.

Managing director Mark Bennett said the company was please to have finished the final part of its preferred offtake strategy.

“We have now secured offtake for all of Nova’s nickel and copper production for the first three years of the mine’s initial ten-year life, and are looking forward to a productive relationship with Glencore,” Mr Bennett said.

Earlier this month, Sirius named Belmont-based Zenith Pacific as its preferred tenderer to build a 20 megawatt diesel/gas power station and a 6.7MW solar facility at Nova.

Shares in Sirius were 2.6 per cent lower to $2.62 each at 11:15am.