Geology

The “Bell River Complex” which hosts Apella Iron-T Project was discovered by Noranda Inc. in 1997, and their work confirmed the presence of Vanadium, Titanium, and Iron mineralization over a distance of more than 15 Km. An earlier airborne was completed by Abitibi Geophysics, who, from the anomalies they identified estimated at least 250 Million Tonnes of highly enriched mineralization lie below. If proven, this would make the Iron-T the largest vanadium deposit in the world, exceeding the renowned Bushveld complex in South Africa presently the world’s leading source of Vanadium. In 2008, Apella acquired all of the claims covering these Bell River Complex anomalies from the highly acclaimed Vanadium mineralogist named Mehmet Taner and his partners. Apella appropriately renamed the asset The Iron-T Vanadium Project after the rich contents of Iron, Titanium and Vanadium it hosted. The 100% owned Iron-T deposit is located in central Quebec, Canada, and consists of 134 claims straddling the 15.5 km of mineralized anomalies, east to west.

 

Apella has now completed 3 drill campaigns over only a small portion of the vanadium rich Iron-T Project. Based on exceptionally positive results to date Apella has now commenced an extensive and aggressive program of ground geophysics to detail drill targets along the entire 15.5km strike-length, east to west. It is anticipated that the Iron-T will contain multiple Vanadium-Iron-Titanium deposits totaling 400 to 500 million tonnes of mineralization once fully exploited.  As expected, the Apella drill programs have all successfully intersected mineable grades and intersected exceptional widths of Vanadium-Iron-Titanium rich magnetite.

 

Apella’s primary strategy is to develop the magnetite rich Iron-T Vanadium-Iron-Titanium Project, ideally situated in the Matagami Camp, to feasibility. Next Apella would leverage the general infrastructure to facilitate the building of processing facilities within an acceptable CAPEX, competitive for developing Vanadium-Iron-Titanium rich magnetite deposits.The geological setting and mineralization encountered on Apella’s 100% owned Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property located in the Bell River Complex indicates many similarities with typical world-class magmatic Fe-Ti-V oxide deposits associated with a layered intrusive complex. Most of these deposits are associated with mafic-ultramafic layered complexes such as the Lake Doré Complex in Chibougamau, Quebec; the Windimurra Complex in Australia; the Panzhihua layered intrusion in China and the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The 6.5 km thick sequence of the Bushveld complex is the largest layered mafic intrusion in South Africa. About 39.5% of total world vanadium production (55 700 t in 2006 (USGS, 2006)) comes from the Bushveld Complex. The V-Fe-Ti oxide ores at Bushveld form concordant layers varying from 0.1 to 10 m in thickness within the Upper Zone but most of these layers are relatively thin and less than 30 cm in thickness. The lower contact of individual layers with their footwall is usually sharp. The upper contacts of individual layers are often gradational and show a gradual decrease of oxide content in the rock. Furthermore, oxide-rich layers are rarely composed entirely of Fe-Ti oxide and some layers or portion of layers may be composed of a fair amount of silicates.

“The economically important Main Magnetite Layer varies from 1.0 to 2.5 m in thickness and covers a strike length of 200 km in the western Bushveld Complex and 120 km in the Eastern Bushveld Complex (Reynolds, 1985).” The Rhovan mine of Xstrata Alloys is a primary vanadium producer situated within the Western Lobe of the Bushveld Complex. The mine is located some 35 km ENE of Rustenburg, South Africa. The vanadium mineral resource and ore reserve of Rhovan mine reported by Xstrata Alloys as of September 2007 (Xstrata Alloys, 2008) are:

Reserves – 39.2 Mt @ 0.51% V2O5

Reserves – 10.5 Mt @ 0.53% V2O5

Measured Mineral Resources – 64.4 Mt @ 0.51% V2O5

Indicated Mineral Resources – 13.7 Mt @ 0.53% V2O5

Inferred Mineral Resources – 124.9 Mt @ 0.51% V2O5”

The Lake Doré Complex is a Bushveld-type Archean layered mafic intrusion (Allard, 1976) located some 250 km due east of Matagami in the Chibougamau mining camp. The Lake Doré Complex is the most advanced project and the largest vanadium deposit in North America. It shows a geological setting and vanadiferous mineralization similar to the Bell River Complex. The Lake Doré Complex is 5 to 7 km in thickness and has been subdivided into three main units from base to top: The Lower Serie including the Anorthosite Zone; the Layered Serie; and the Upper Serie which includes the Granophyre and the Border Zone (Daigneault and Allard, 1990). The mineralized zones form a 50 to 200 m thick sequence within the Layered Serie. The sequence comprises ferrogabbro, ferropyroxenite and magnetite and hosts the highest grades of vanadium mineralization. Mineralized oxide horizons are also characterized by heterogeneous and rhythmic distribution within the Layered Serie (Taner, Ercit and Gault, 1998) and a gradual upward decrease of vanadium content and gradual upward increase of ilmenite (Daigneault and Allard, 1990). The magnetite horizons vary from 50 to 200 m in thickness and extend for 16 km along strike as inferred from airborne magnetic data. The Lake Doré Vanadium deposit at Chibougamau is estimated to 100.0 Mt grading 0.49% V2O5 including 32.2 Mt of measured resources at 0.65% V2O5 (Girard and Allard, 1998).

Apella has concluded that similarities between the Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property and typical world class vanadium deposits associated to layered mafic to ultramafic intrusions justifies an series of aggressive exploration programs dedicated to the project. Future exploration programs will be designed to further define prospective areas of vanadiferous mineralization within the Upper zone of the Bell River Complex. Since the vanadium content is closely correlated with iron contents of the host rock, magnetic geophysical methods are considered to be the most effective and inexpensive approach to locate favourable horizons that may indicative of vanadiferous mineralization.

The Iron-T Vanadium-Titanium-Iron property is located in the Matagami area in the west-central part of the Province of Quebec, Canada, approximately 780 km north of Montreal.  Matagami, situated in the administrative region of Northern Quebec, is the major town in the area and can provide housing, servicing, supplies, consumables and transport facilities including railway access for an efficient mining operation. Hydro from James Bay is nearby.

 

Vanadium Deposit Type

Covers parts of the Bell River Complex which is a large, layered Archean intrusion occurring in the Matagami mining district.

Evidence of Potential World Class Deposit

• Original Abitibi Geophysics Airborne estimate of 250Mt
• Mineralology virtually identical to Lac Dore Deposit and spanning 20 km at surface
• Large geomagnetic anomalies suggest a significant highly concentrated deposit
• Trench sampling confirm high grade V-TI-Fe over initial 10km
• Apella Drilling yields high grade results of V-TI-Fe on all 24 holes drilled on intersect lengths up to 93.6M

Infrastructure

• Paved highway to the site
• 115 kV power line over site
• Elevation 1500 m
• 150 kms to port at James Bay, 300 kms to port at St. Lawrence

Planned Time Line

• Metallurgical Testing – ongoing
• Additional Drilling to Prefeasibility Study Level  2010– 2011
• Prefeasibility Study - 2011
• Potential Production - 2013-2014

Advantages

• Near surface deposit suitable for open pit mining

• Potentially the world's largest known Vanadium deposit
• Development stage project
• Staged and scalable development facilitates production increases matched with incremental demand growth
• Located to meet U.S. domestic market and good access to Asian markets
• Quebec is a mining friendly province with good infrastructure
• Timing of anticipated Vanadium production coincides with rising demand expected from a shift to alternative energy and hybrid/electric vehicles