Well-funded mid-tier gold development and exploration company, Gold Road Resources Limited (Gold Road or the Company) confirms it has signed two earn-in joint venture agreements (Earn-in Agreements) with Cygnus Gold Limited (Cygnus) over an approximate 3,400 square kilometre area of the Wadderin and the Lake Grace greenfield exploration projects, located in the south-west of Western Australia (Figure 1). The Earn-in Agreements provide Gold Road with the opportunity to earn up to a 75% interest in these two areas.
In addition to the Earn-in Agreements, Gold Road has agreed to subscribe for A$750,000 in shares in Cygnus’ upcoming initial public offering (IPO), expected to be in late 2017.
The Earn-in Agreements provide Gold Road with direct exploration exposure to two large tenement holdings over prospective greenstone belts in Western Australia’s prolific Yilgarn Craton. These project areas have seen minimal modern exploration due to low resolution geophysical data, widespread soil and laterite cover and a prevailing perception that highgrade metamorphic terranes do not offer the same prospectivity as other Yilgarn Greenstone Belts.
Cygnus has re-interpreted extensive greenstone belts within the high-grade metamorphic terrane of the south-west Yilgarn Craton utilising leading edge proprietary geophysical techniques, and secured substantial land positions over a number of interpreted greenstone belts.
Gold Road will leverage its proven expertise in greenfields exploration in covered greenstone terranes, with the aim to identify plus-million ounce gold discoveries. Recent discovery success in similar high-grade metamorphic terranes include the multi-million ounce Tropicana Deposit in the Albany-Fraser Belt in Western Australia; the 700,000 ounce Tampia resource project (Explaurum) near Wadderin, Western Australia; and the two million ounce Borden Lake Deposit (Gold Corp) in Ontario (Canada), which demonstrate significant deposit sizes in similar geological terranes.
Justin Osborne, Gold Road’s Executive Director, Exploration and Growth commented, “Gold Road is looking to acquire greenfield projects with large land holdings in low risk jurisdictions, to complement our Yamarna Greenstone package. The practical and well considered application of new concepts and technologies in what we consider highly prospective gold districts, in the search for new multi-million ounce gold discoveries, is the strength of Gold Road. With the significant decline in Australian greenfields exploration over the last 10 years, Gold Road is looking to fill the void and leverage its proven exploration skills and experience which led to the discovery of the 6.2Moz Gruyere Gold deposit.
As Gold Road’s first venture outside the Yamarna Belt, we believe the Wadderin and Lake Grace projects meet our strict target criteria. We are very excited by the cutting-edge work that Cygnus have conducted to identify historically overlooked areas of greenstone in Western Australia’s prolific Yilgarn Craton. We believe this a potentially new gold district in an area of Western Australia which has been neglected for many years, and is an area that offers tremendous upside potential.”
James Merrillees, Cygnus’ CEO added, “Following on from RCF’s funding support, we are excited to be partnering with one of Australia’s most successful gold explorers, and by Gold Road’s strong endorsement of our team and dominant land position in the highly prospective south-west of Western Australia. We look forward to working closely with Gold Road to test priority targets as we progress Cygnus toward IPO in late 2017.”
