Mirasol Resources has announced the signing of binding letter agreement with Newcrest International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Newcrest Mining (NCM), for an option to farm-in on the Gorbea High-Sulfidation Epithermal (HSE) gold projects in Chile.
Image: Pouring Liquid Gold. Photo: courtesy of Dan Brown.
The binding letter agreement covers a package of projects totaling 26,684ha, and includes the Atlas Au+Ag and the Titan Au (Cu) lead properties, located in the Mio-Pliocene age mineral belt of northern Chile.
Mirasol Resources CEO Stephen Nano said: “Newcrest is the ideal partner for our Gorbea projects. Subject to drill permitting, Newcrest will this year fund drill testing of two, large Mio-Pliocene belt HSE Au+Ag projects at Gorbea and under a separate agreement, at the Altazor project in northern Chile.”
Furthermore, NCM holds the right to acquire in multiple stages, up to 75% of the Gorbea Project by carrying out a chain of exploration and development activities and making staged option payments to Mirasol.
As part of the agreement, NCM has committed to spend a minimum of $4m and to complete a minimum of 3,000m of drilling over an initial 18-month period. It will operate the exploration program at Gorbea.
NCM and Mirasol are working jointly to improve the drill permitting process at Gorbea and upgrade the exploration camp before the restart of the exploration program in the first quarter of 2019.
Restart of the exploration program would be initially focused on the Atlas project, including detailed re-mapping, alteration vectoring studies, 60 line-km of CSAMT geophysics, and diamond core drilling.
Under the terms of the agreement, NCM will have the right to exercise the farm-in phase at the end of the option-phase. The farm-in phase will include four stages.
Mirasol, in a statement, said: “In the event that NCM should complete Stage 1, but elect not to proceed to Stage 2, NCM’s 51% interest shall be adjusted to a 49% interest.
“If NCM completes Stage 2, but elects not to proceed to Stage 3, the 65% interest shall be adjusted to 60% and the parties may agree to halt further exploration or continue and contribute in proportion to their interests or be diluted.”