Regis Resources has executed a letter of agreement to acquire the McPhillamys gold exploration project in the Bathurst region of New South Wales, Australia for A$150 million in Regis shares. The sellers are the project’s joint-venture owners, Newmont Exploration 51% and Alkane Resources 49%. The acquisition agreement includes three exploration licenses, including the gold resource; mining information; two freehold properties overlapping part of the project area; and other minor plant and equipment.
The McPhillamys project has current JORC-compliant indicated and inferred gold resources of 2.5 million oz in 57.4 million mt grading 1.36 g/mt. Regis’s immediate focus after completion of the acquisition will be a drilling program to increase the density of drilling on the resources to a level that will allow estimation of an updated, JORC-compliant resource and ultimately a maiden reserve. The drilling will also focus on the very sparsely drilled near-surface areas of the deposit. The company estimates that at least 12 months of work will be required to complete this drilling and resource update.
Along with the drilling, Regis will begin studies and work aimed at satisfying the numerous technical requirements for completion of a definitive feasibility study into the potential development of an open-pit-mining, CIL-extraction project at McPhillamys. Work leading up to the start of a definitive feasibility study is expected to take about 24 months to complete.
Regis is a Perth-based Australian company that has a producing mine at its Duketon project in Western Australia. (www.regisresources.com.au)
