Canadian gold exploration and development firm Osino Resources has agreed to acquire the Ondundu gold exploration property in Namibia from B2Gold.
The purchase price, which is around $15.2m, is a combination of cash, deferred cash and shares.
With an area of 19,969ha, the Ondundu gold project is situated 250km northwest of Windhoek in northern central Namibia within exclusive prospecting licence 3195. It is a sediment-hosted, structurally controlled, mesothermal gold deposit metamorphosed to the greenschist facies.
Under the terms of the agreement, Osino will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of the Namibian firm Razorback Gold Mining Company that owns 100% of the licence 3195.
Osino president and CEO Heye Daun said: “We plan to build on the excellent exploration and resource development work which B2Gold completed over the last 6 years and to quickly advance the project to compliant resource stage.
“Based on the Project’s historical exploration and analysis, we believe the Ondundu Gold Project has the type of mineralization with potential to host a significant open-pit gold resource possibly in the order of more than 1moz of contained gold with the possibility for co-development with Osino’s Twin Hills Gold Project.”
The property, which was discovered in 1917, is hosted within the northern zone of the Neoproterozoic Damara Orogen in north-central Namibia.
Ondundu’s gold mineralisation is hosted in bedding parallel, quartz-ankerite-pyrite veins associated with steep west-dipping shear zones.
According to the company, preliminary metallurgical testwork has shown that the project is amenable to gravity recovery methods, which could support co-development with Osino’s Twin Hills project that is at an advanced stage of exploration.
The deal is subject to Namibian regulatory approvals and certain other customary closing conditions. If the purchase is not closed by 30 June, the agreement will be terminated.
