LONDON (Alliance News) - Aureus Mining Inc on Monday said the Bea Mountain mining license has been enlarged to include the Leopard Rock gold target, which will allow the company to develop a second gold project under its existing mineral development agreement.
The miner said the entire 13 kilometre gold bearing structural corridor stretching from the Gondoja target to the Leopard Rock South target is now located within the company's Bea Mountain mining licence. The license now covers 478 kilometres squared in total from the previous 457 kilometres squared.
The enlargement of the licence allows the company to try to commercially develop the entire mineralised gold corridor under the Mineral Development Agreement, subject to the granting of an environmental permit, said the company.
The rights to mine at the Leopard target are covered by the Bea Mountain Mineral Development Agreement, which "provides a stable environment in respect to the legal, operational and fiscal parameters for the operations", it said.
"The inclusion of the Leopard Rock gold target within our existing mining licence area will allow Aureus to develop the entire 13 kilometre gold corridor under the same fiscal and operating terms as the New Liberty project," said President and Chief Executive David Reading.
The New Liberty Gold project is located within the Southern Block of the 100% owned Bea Mountain mining licence and has a 25-year, renewable mineral development agreement.
Previous drilling at the Leopard target has produced intercepts including 17.6 grammes of gold per tonne over 4 metres, 13.9 grammes of gold per tonne over 4 metres, 9.4 grammes of gold per tonne over 3 metres, and 9.5 grammes per tonne over 3 metres.
Aureus currently has an exploration team carrying out field mapping and sampling whilst identifying potential targets. The company is hoping to begin a drilling programme on the targets in the first quarter of 2016.
"This consolidation enables us to focus our efforts solely on defining a second economic project rather than negotiating a new mineral development agreement for a portion of the corridor. We consider the gold corridor to be highly prospective and to date we have only drill tested approximately one kilometre of this area. This has resulted in the definition of over 900,000 ounces at Ndablama," said Chief Executive Reading.
Aureus shares were up 9.0% to 26.29 pence per share on Monday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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