Panthera Resources plc (LON: PAT), the gold exploration and development company with assets in India and West Africa, has today announced it has decided to move to a full Option to Purchase agreement following its successful due diligence investigation of the Labola Project in Burkina Faso, West Africa.
Panthera has informed the vendor of its decision to proceed and made the initial option fee payment of US$50,000. The agreement allows Panthera up to five years to explore and develop the project and it may obtain a 100% interest in the project by payment of US$1,000,000 to the vendor at any time within this five-year period. An additional payment of US$1,000,000 will become due if a JORC compliant resource exceeding 1,000,000 ounces of contained gold is defined and a 1% net smelter royalty capped at US$2M will be payable from production.
Project Highlights
· The Labola gold project consist of a package of approximately 65km2 of licences that host two significant quartz vein structures that have been mined (artisanal) over at least a 9km strike.
· This is the first time this package of properties has been consolidated under one ownership and it represents an excellent opportunity to integrate the significant amount of previous drilling and optimise the resource potential of the project.
· Previous explorers have announced combined JORC and 43-101 compliant resources of over 600,000oz averaging (approximately) 1.2g/t Au. Panthera has undertaken an extensive review of these resources and believes that with limited additional exploration work there is a high probability of being able to upgrade them again to JORC compliance.
· Significant potential for higher grade mineralisation can also be seen based on previous drill results:
2m @ 130.6g/t Au from 66m
11m @ 8.2g/t Au from 147m
6.5m @ 7.26g/t Au from 318m.
Geoff Stanley, Panthera Resources Plc Managing Director said
“This is an exciting addition to Panthera’s West African gold portfolio with drill defined mineralisation identified over at least 7km of the known 9km strike and previously identified resource estimates of approximately 600,000 ounces of contained gold. The Company is well advanced with planning programs to confirm previous resources and define extensions to those resources. The large strike extent of artisanal workings and the significant amount of previous drilling has provided abundant targets for initial exploration work and significantly de-risks the project.”
