Takeover target Sirius Resources has inked a supply agreement with diversified major Glencore to supply nearly half of the planned nickel sulphide concentrate production from the Nova mine, in Western Australia.

It was expected that concentrate from Nova would be trucked by road to either the Esperance or Geraldton ports for export.

“We are pleased to have completed the final part of our preferred offtake strategy with such an attractive offtake deal with Glencore. 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,” said Sirius MD Mark Bennett.

The commercial terms for the Glencore offtake agreenment remained confidential, but Bennett said that, as with the previous offtake agreements with BHP Billiton’s Nickel West and commodities trading group Trafigura, the agreement reflected the anticipated exceptionally high quality of the Nova concentrate.

The Nova nickel mine was expected to deliver about 26 000 t/y of nickel, 11 500 t/y of copper and 850 t/y of cobalt over a ten-year mine life with concentrate production expected to start in late 2016.

Fellow-listed Independent Group in May launched a takeover offer for Sirius, offering Sirius shareholders 0.66 of an Independent share for every one Sirius share held, along with a cash consideration of 52c a share.

The takeover offer valued Sirius at around A$1.8-billion.

The Federal Court of Australia recently gave its blessing to the merger transaction, while shareholder meetings have been planned for September 3.

• [Editor:Juan]