Barrick Gold has signed an agreement with Alicanto Minerals granting Barrick the option to earn a 65% interest in Alicanto’s Arakaka gold project in northwest Guyana. Funding requirements for Barrick total $10 million, including $8 million in exploration expenditures over a period of four years and a $2 million cash payment to Alicanto at the completion of the earn-in expenditure.
Alicanto will remain the operator of the project during the first two years of the agreement, overseeing an anticipated exploration expenditure of $4 million. Barrick will have final approval for exploration programs and annual budgets for each year of the earn-in period.
The Arakaka project covers 300 km2 in a relatively under-explored greenstone belt. The project area has been the source of more than 1 million oz of alluvial and near-surface gold production across a mining history of more than 100 years. Readily accessible infrastructure includes an all-season road network, daily flights to within 10 km of the property, and deep-water port facilities within 15 km of the property boundary.
Alicanto Minerals is an Australian junior company.
Oban Mining has reported numerous encouraging intercepts from an ongoing drilling program at its 100% owned Windfall Lake gold project 200 km northeast of Val-d’Or, Quebec. The 55,000-m program combines definition drilling above the project’s Red Dog intrusion with expansion drilling both above and below the intrusion.
Drilling above Red Dog is focused on expanding known zones of mineralization and upgrading the level of confidence in the established mineral resource. Drilling below Red Dog is focused on testing three major corridors of mineralization and alteration similar to known lenses defined above Red Dog.
Oban reported numerous drill intercepts and grades from Windfall Lake in a series of six press releases through the first quarter of 2016. A February 29 release included a report of a spectacular intercept of 286.88 g/mt gold across
2 m. More typically, intercepts are being reported in the range of 5 to 20 g/mt.
Mirasol Resources has signed an exploration and option agreement with Cerro Vanguardia S.A. providing for exploration of Mirasol’s Claudia gold-silver project in Santa Cruz province Argentina. Cerro Vanguardia is owned 92.5% by AngloGold Ashanti and 7.5% by Fomicruz, the Santa Cruz provincial mining company.
The Claudia project abuts the Cerro Vanguardia gold-silver mine property, which has produced 1.25 million oz of gold over the past five years. Mirasol exploration on the project has identified targets that are within reasonable trucking distance of Cerro Vanguardia’s processing facilities and have the potential to be developed as satellites to the Cerro Vanguardia operation.
The Mirasol/Cerro Vanguardia exploration and option agreement is structured in three phases, which, if pursued to their conclusion, allow Cerro Vanguardia to earn a 65% interest in the Claudia project by delivering a preliminary economic assessment with an NI 43-101 compliant resource of not less than 350,000 oz of gold in the inferred, or higher, resource classification, with grades that support profitable economic extraction based upon the Cerro Vanguardia mine cost structure.
Calibre Mining reported ongoing progress at its La Luz gold project in northeast Nicaragua, where Centerra Gold can earn a 70% interest by investing $7 million in exploration before December 31, 2019. Work to date has defined three high-priority targets. Current fieldwork is concentrating on an extensive trenching program, testing geological, geochemical, and geophysical anomalies generated by exploration to date, with a goal of prioritizing drill targets for additional diamond drilling in 2016.
A recently completed drilling program on the Cerro Aeropuerto deposit tested the continuity and orientation of previously identified primary gold-bearing structures. Mineralization has been identified across 250 m of strike and to between 175 and 275 m below surface. Intercepts included 53.7 m grading 10.47 g/mt gold in one hole, with an interval of 2.7 m grading 120.58 g/mt gold uncut.
