Canadian mineral resource firm Graphite One Resources has acquired a 100% interest in the high-grade Graphite Creek deposit in Alaska, by making a final option payment of $250,000.

The project will be governed by a 20-year lease with automatic renewal provisions, which will allow for a 5% net smelter royalty that could be reduced to 3% if payments are made of $2m for each percent purchased.

Graphite One unveiled the significant advancements it has made on the property since 2012, noting the recently reported National Instrument 43-101-compliant inferred resource of 284.7 million tonnes at 4.5% graphite, including 37.68 million tonnes at 9.2% graphite and 8.63 million tonnes at 12.8% graphite.

"The inferred resource estimate at Graphite Creek suggests it is the biggest and highest-grade known graphite deposit in the US."

The company also stated that the inferred resource estimate at Graphite Creek suggests it is the biggest and highest-grade known graphite deposit in the US.

Graphite One Resources president and CEO Anthony Huston said: "We have succeeded on all fronts, both financially and technically, to now own this asset 100%, and will forge ahead to unlock the deposit’s value for shareholders."

The Graphite Creek property consists of 129 claims totalling 6,799ha on Alaska’s Seward peninsula, 65km north of a deep sea port at Nome.

Graphite Creek mineralisation is characterised by coarse crystalline graphite greater than 80 mesh, within graphite-bearing schists.

The graphite deposits consist mainly of segregations of semi-massive to massive graphite, and graphite disseminations that are hosted in schistose rocks within the lower granulite facies portion of the Kigluaik Group.

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