18 Feb 2015 07:00
Alecto Minerals plc / EPIC: ALO / Market: AIM / Sector: Exploration & Development
18 February 2015
Alecto Minerals plc ('Alecto' or the 'Company')
Termination of Ethiopian Joint Venture Agreement
Alecto Minerals plc (AIM: ALO), the AIM quoted mineral exploration company focussed on West and East Africa, announces that it has received formal 90 days notice from Centamin plc ('Centamin') to terminate the joint venture agreement entered into between the Company and Centamin in September 2013 with regards to the development of the Company's licences in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia ('Joint Venture'). Pursuant to the terms of the Joint Venture, Centamin's rights in the Wayu Boda and Aysid Metekel licences (the 'Licences') will revert to Alecto, such that Alecto will hold 100% of the Licences and will assume responsibility for the ongoing commitments in respect of the Licences on termination of the Joint Venture.
The Company's Board continues to believe in the prospectivity of the Licences and will actively seek a new partner for the continued exploration and advancement of the Licences. The Company also looks forward to receiving all of the outstanding results obtained by Centamin from its drilling programme (including 25 diamond drills holes completed on the Wayu Boda licence), surface sampling, trenching and mapping completed across the Licences during 2014.
**ENDS**
For further information, please visit www.alectominerals.com or contact:
Alecto Minerals plc Mark Jones | Tel: +44 (0)20 3137 8862 |
|
|
Strand Hanson Limited Richard Tulloch Matthew Chandler James Dance | Tel: +44 (0)20 7409 3494 |
|
|
Hume Capital Securities plc Jon Belliss Abigail Wayne | Tel: +44 (0)20 3693 1470 |
|
|
St Brides Partners Ltd Elisabeth Cowell Felicity Winkles | Tel: +44 (0)20 7236 1177 |
Notes to editors:
Alecto Minerals plc is an African focussed, gold and base metal exploration and development company quoted on AIM with exploration projects in Mali, Ethiopia, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.
In Mali, the Kossanto Project has a current independent inferred JORC code compliant resource estimate of 6.72Mt grading at 1.14g/t Au for an aggregate of 247,000 oz Au with a cut-off grade of 0.5g/t Au at Kossanto East. The Kossanto Project is located in the centre of the Kenieba inlier in western Mali. The Kenieba inlier is a block of ancient greenstones and granites hosting many significant gold deposits in Senegal and Mali, making it one of the most important gold regions in Africa.
The Kerboulé Project, located in the highly prospective Birrimian-age Djibo gold belt in northern Burkina Faso, is ideally positioned for the definition of a preliminary JORC resource estimate, as well as on-going resource expansion, and accordingly is the near term focus of the Company to provide the basis for commencing a preliminary economic assessment.
Alecto also has two prospective gold exploration licences in Ethiopia as well as the wholly owned Wad Amour IOCG Project in Mauritania which is at an exploration stage.
Combined, these projects provide the Company with a strong, diversified portfolio with exciting exploration upside potential.