PERTH (miningweekly.com) – In keeping with its focus shift to manganese, ASX-listed Gulf Minerals Corporation on Thursday announced that it would divest of its 51% interest in its Northern Territory copper exploration tenement to joint venture partner Redbank Copper.

Redbank would pay Gulf some A$125 000 for its stake in the exploration project, with full payment due incrementally over a nine-month period, and settlement expected following Ministerial consent for the transfer.

Gulf CEO Bruce Morrin said on Thursday that an internal review had revealed that the exploration project would not support a standalone operation, and to become commercially viable, would need to become part of the contiguous Redbank Copper project.

Earlier this year, Gulf also entered into negotiations with Canada’s Laramide Resources to divest of its uranium exploration licence in the Northern Territory. This transaction would be completed shortly.

“This Redbank agreement and the soon-to-be-concluded agreement with Laramide enables our focus to be developing our Indonesian manganese alloy project, and our manganese exploration in Turkey, to build the company into a full integrated manganese producer,” said Morrin.

In June this year, Gulf signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian alloy group Ferro Alloys Corporation to conduct a due diligence and possibly establish a joint fully integrated Indonesian manganese ore and alloy enterprise.

The MoU was conducted in two parts, the first of which covered the building and establishment of a smelter facility based in West Timor.

The second part of the MoU covered the development of manganese and coking coal mines in Indonesia, as well as other global locations.

Gulf expected the smelter’s first two furnaces to be built in 2015, coming on line by early 2016, with a further two furnaces added each year for a total of eight furnaces, producing 150 000 t/y at full production.