Japanese company DOWA Metals & Mining Co., which has been financing the bulk of the ongoing exploration work on the Palmer Project, has pulled out of the venture leaving American Pacific to be the sole owner.
American Pacific announced Monday that it would be getting 100% interest in the exploratory mixed-metals mining operation northwest of Haines and Klukwan and $10 million from DOWA which, in return, will get an option to buy half of the zinc concentrate from the mine if it goes into production.
During a call on Monday, American Pacific Chief Executive Officer Warwick Smith framed the move as a growth opportunity for the company which previously owned just 29% of the Palmer Project. The company acquired the project from Constantine Metal Resources in 2022.
Company president Joness Lang described the deal as one that came about because the two companies had “differing corporate priorities and objectives.”
For DOWA, he said the incentive has always been to get zinc concentrate to Japan. But Lang said he thinks the project has started to shift from being “zinc-forward.”
“[We’re] certainly seeing high-grade copper zones which is less of a fit in terms of the overall objectives on the project on the DOWA side,” he said.
Smith added onto that saying that American Pacific believes the project has bigger growth potential.
“DOWA looked at it and said ‘hey, it’s 14 million tons of good grey. Let’s get it into production because we want that zinc concentrate’,” he said.
“Every geologist that looked at this that we spoke to said ‘we think this has got that 50 million ton potential.’ It’s got the opportunity to be big. That’s what really excited us about this project,” he said.
American Pacific is a junior mineral exploration company. The company’s largest project is the Madison copper-gold mine in Montana, which it was operating under a joint venture with a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group, one of the world’s biggest mining companies. But the Rio Tinto subsidiary walked away from that project in February of 2024, leaving American Pacific Mining as its sole owner as well.