Toronto, Ontario and Lima, Peru, January 30, 2008 – Norsemont Mining Inc. (“the Company”) (TSX: NOM, BVL: NOM) today announced that the Company has exercised the final Rio Tinto option thereby clearing the way to increase its ownership over the Constancia copper/molybdenum/silver project to 100 percent.
The Constancia Project is located in southern Peru and has a 43-101 compliant indicated resource of 70M tonnes (0.8 Billion lbs Cu) and an inferred resource of 250M tonnes (2.8 Billion lbs Cu). Infill drilling to improve confidence in the current resource is nearing completion following which seven drill rigs will commence step-out drilling designed to increase the global project resource.
Norsemont entered into an option agreement with Rio Tinto in 2005 whereby the Company could acquire Rio Tinto’s 70 percent interest in the Constancia Project through a series of cash payments, share issuances and project expenditures. The remaining 30 percent interest in Constancia was held by Mitsui and acquired by Norsemont in October 2007.
In November 2007 Norsemont met the requirements to exercise the initial 51 percent Rio Tinto option thereby taking the Company’s interest in Constancia to 81 percent. Following the exercise of the initial option, Rio Tinto had 60 days within which to decide whether to claw back a 17 percent interest in Constancia. The Company has been advised by Rio Tinto that as Constancia’s current resource does not meet their size criteria it is not exercising its claw-back right. Norsemont has now advised Rio Tinto that the Company will be exercising the final option to acquire the remaining 19 percent interest in Constancia, which will take the Company’s interest to 100 percent.
Commenting, Norsemont CEO Patrick Evans said: “Acquisition of an undivided 100 percent interest in the Constancia project represents a significant milestone for Norsemont. Constancia is a large and robust project with the capacity to produce in excess of 90,000 tonnes of copper per annum. The copper concentrate that will be produced at Constancia has not been committed to any off-take. The recently completed Constancia scoping study indicates that the project has a net present value of $530M and an internal rate of return in of 25.3 percent. The potential to increase the Constancia resource is very good and we are about to commence a major drill campaign to achieve this.”
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For more information please contact:
Patrick Evans
Norsemont Mining
Phone: 416-670-5114
E-Mail: investors@norsemont.com
Web Site: www.norsemont.com
