Australian mining group Raiden Resources signed a joint venture agreement worth $31.5m with Rio Tinto in regards to three of its Serbian copper and gold exploration licenses. Under the agreement, Rio Tinto has the option to spend up to $31.5m for a 75-percent stake in the Zapadni Majdanpek, Majdanpek Pojas and Donje Nevlje licenses in the Western Tethyan Metallogenic Belt in Serbia. Raiden Resources plans to focus on its exploration program. “In our opinion, this validates the prospectivity of our licences and we look forward to working closely with the Rio team and realizing the potential of the JV properties. It also enables us to focus on exploration in our retained licences to rapidly deploy our planned exploration program,” said Dusko Ljubojevic, executive director of Raiden Resources.
