Centerra Gold and Premier Gold Mines Ltd. will form a 50:50 partnership for the joint ownership and development of Premier’s Trans-Canada property including the Hardrock gold project located in the Geraldton-Beardmore Greenstone Belt in Ontario.
“Forming this partnership gives Centerra’s shareholders exposure to a significant gold resource and an advanced stage development project in Ontario, Canada,” said Ian Atkinson, president and CEO of Centerra. “The property has a large land package with exceptional exploration potential. As we have stated in the past, it has been our goal to identify and acquire an additional production platform. We feel that the Trans-Canada property, including the flagship Hardrock gold project, complements our growth pipeline, which includes the Gatsuurt project in Mongolia and the Öksüt project in Turkey.”
“This partnership is an important step in realizing Premier’s objective to become a prominent North American-focused gold producer,” said Ewan Downie, president and CEO of Premier Gold. “With this partnership comes a more clear and certain path toward realizing the potential that the Trans-Canada Property represents.”
The Trans-Canada property comprises a group of mineral claims situated within the Geraldton-Beardmore Greenstone Belt, which extends for 110 km between Lake Nipigon and the community of Long Lac, approximately 250 km northeast of Thunder Bay. Together, the claim blocks cover an area of approximately 33,000 hectares consisting of unpatented mineral claims, mining leases and mining patent claims.
Located along the Trans-Canada Highway, the flagship Hardrock project is found on one of the larger claim blocks and is central to a historic gold camp that produced approximately 3 million oz of gold between 1936 and 1970. It benefits from excellent existing infrastructure with the town of Geraldton located only 2 km to the north. The Hardrock project is an advanced-stage project currently undergoing feasibility study. A Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) was completed and the results published by Premier on January 28, 2014. Subsequently on July 8, 2014, an updated mineral resource on the Hardrock project was published by Premier with an estimated 4.87 million total contained oz of gold within an Indicated Resource (89.04 million metric tons (mt) at 1.7 g/mt gold and 2.74 million oz of gold in an inferred resource (23.15 million mt at 3.69 g/mt gold).
