Canada-based Surge Copper has agreed to acquire 100% of the Berg property in Canada from Thompson Creek Metals, a fully-owned subsidiary of Centerra Gold, in an all-stock deal.
As per the terms of the definitive purchase agreement, Surge Copper will issue 21.2 million of its common shares to Thompson Creek Metals as consideration. This will translate into Thompson Creek Metals owning a stake of around 15% in Surge Copper.
In accordance with the purchase agreement, Thompson Creek Metals will receive the shares at a designated price of C$0.075 ($0.057) per share, amounting to a total deemed consideration of C$1.59m ($1.2m).
The purchase agreement supersedes a previous option agreement signed in December 2020 between Surge Copper and Thompson Creek Metals.
Under the earlier agreement, Surge Copper had the opportunity to acquire a 70% interest in the Berg property by investing C$8m ($6m) over five years and issuing C$5m ($3.8m) in common shares of the company to Thompson Creek Metals.
As per the option agreement, Thompson Creek Metals presently holds 11.85 million common shares of Surge Copper, constituting approximately 6% of the latter’s issued and outstanding shares.
The Berg property spans 34,798 hectares and is contiguous with the rest of Surge Copper’s mineral claims, which are entirely owned by the company.
Surge Copper CEO Leif Nilsson said: “We are very pleased to be consolidating a 100% interest in the Berg Property, which firmly establishes our ownership position in the broader Berg-Huckleberry-Ootsa district, results in a more simplified ownership structure for all parties, and provides Surge with significantly more flexibility in future financing choices to advance its assets.
“Surge now holds a simple 100% ownership interest in a contiguous 125,499-hectare land package that hosts the Berg Project, for which we released a maiden NI 43-101 compliant PEA in June 2023, the Ootsa Project, for which we released an updated NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate in June 2022, and an extensive pipeline of exploration targets prospective for porphyry copper and associated breccia and hydrothermal vein style base metal and precious metal deposits.”
Berg, which is an open-pit copper project, features over 1 billion tonnes of measured and indicated material, comprising 5.1 billion lbs of copper, 633 million tonnes of molybdenum, 150 million ozs of silver, and 744 thousand ozs of gold.
Nilsson stated further that the company’s aims to continue to advance and de-risk the large, emerging critical minerals district and explore the high-potential regional targets in a systematic manner.
Closing of the deal is contingent on the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.
