JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Alt Resources has entered into a binding heads of agreement (HoA) with fellow-listed Latitude Consolidated to acquire a significant exploration tenement in the Mt Ida district, Western Australia.

The landholding encompasses the historical Quinns and Mt Ida South mining centres, as well as the Mt Ida joint venture projects and contains existing Joint Ore Reserve Committee-compliant resources of 1.24-million tonnes at 2.5 g/t gold, for 97 300 oz. It also holds the Bottle Creek mining leases, thus considerably expanding Alt’s landholding in this area, and opening up significant exploration and development potential.

Announcing the transaction on Tuesday, the companies said that Alt would make a cash payment of A$400 000 to Latitude within seven days of signing the HoA and issue A$750 000 in tradeable fully paid ordinary shares, with a voluntary escrow period of six months from the date of completion.

The issue of shares pursuant to the acquisition of the assets may be subject to shareholder approval.

Alt would also grant A$250 000 of options over fully paid ordinary shares, being 3.12-million options, with each option having an exercise price being 8c apiece and exercisable for three years from date of issue.

Alt would also make a cash payment of A$600 000 to Latitude on or before March 30.

Following the sale, Latitude would maintain a 100% interest in the Gecko North and Levers Well gold projects.

Alt CEO James Anderson said the addition of the Mt Ida South and Quinns assets was significant for the company. “The expansion is in line with our strategy to work towards becoming a gold producer. We view the area to have the potential to support sufficient mining production for a processing plant on the existing Bottle Creek mining leases.

“The project now has significant scale to warrant further development of known resources. Previous miners have been held back from development in this area of the Mt Ida gold belt as there was no processing plant in the immediate vicinity. Alt considers the Bottle Creek Mine site to be the ideal location to establish a carbon-in-leach plant to process the Bottle Creek and the surrounding Latitude ore bodies,” he highlighted.

Latitude chairperson Tim Moore added that the sale was a strategic decision, aimed at providing the company with the requisite near-term flexibility and funding to actively pursue a number of opportunities.

“Importantly, the divestment also allows Latitude’s management team to narrow its focus towards unlocking value from its remaining highly prospective gold assets including the Gecko north project and the recently acquired Levers Well project in the Pilbara.

“Our exploration team is currently finalising an exploration programme aimed at further investigating a number of key targets within both the Gecko North and Levers Well projects respectively.”