Aldebaran announces collaboration agreement with Nuton LLC, a Rio Tinto Venture

Aldebaran holds a 60% interest in the Altar copper-gold project in San Juan Province, Argentina and can earn an additional 20% interest in the project by completing a further US$25 million in expenditures at Altar over the next three years.

Aldebaran Resources Inc. announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Nuton LLC, a Rio Tinto Venture (“Nuton”) to evaluate the use of Nuton’s proprietary primary sulphide leaching technologies on the Altar copper-gold project, located in San Juan, Argentina.

Under the terms of the agreement, Aldebaran will deliver samples representing various styles of mineralization from the Altar project to Nuton. Nuton will then complete detailed mineralogical analyses of each sample before placing the material into columns. Samples will be placed in columns with a height of 1 m, each under different controlled Nuton operating conditions. It is expected that the full results will be available approximately one year after the columns are loaded. Test work is currently anticipated to commence in H1 2024.

As part of the agreement, Aldebaran has granted exclusivity to Nuton in the area of novel, patented or trade secret leaching technologies, for a period of one year starting on the agreement date of January 9, 2024. The parties will share the cost of the test program with Aldebaran covering the cost of preparation and shipping of the samples to Nuton, and Nuton paying for the costs of metallurgical test work.

John E. Black, Chief Executive Officer of Aldebaran, commented: “We’re happy to collaborate with Nuton to evaluate the potential use of their sulphide leaching technology at the Altar project. While sulphide leaching isn’t necessary to move the Altar project forward, it could positively impact the project's economics, if successful.”

Adam Burley, Chief Executive Officer of Nuton, commented: “We are pleased to announce this collaboration agreement with Aldebaran. Nuton has a wide range of potential use cases. At Altar we are encouraged by the potential of Nuton to unlock copper resources in a project with substantial scale potential and in a way that is more environmentally efficient than conventional processes”