JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – London-listed Acacia Mining has expanded its footprint in the prospective Houndé greenstone belt, in Burkina Faso, through the signing of two further earn-in agreements with Sydney-listed Canyon Resources and Toronto-listed Thor Explorations.
The agreement with Thor allowed Tanzania’s largest gold miner to earn up to an 80% interest in the Central Houndé project. Acacia would earn an initial 51% interest following the completion of agreed exploration expenditures over a three-year period.
The group would then be eligible to earn an additional 29% interest in the project by completing a prefeasibility study on a mineral resource on the project area.
The Canyon agreement, meanwhile, allowed Acacia to earn up to a 75% interest in the Pinarello and Konkolikan projects through the completion of an upfront cash payment and agreed exploration expenditure over a two-year period.
Acacia would manage and undertake exploration programmes on both of these new earn-in projects, spending around $1-million. This formed part of the company’s forecast $20-million 2015 exploration budget.
“The completion of these earn-in agreements complements the existing South Houndé joint venture (JV) in Burkina Faso, and, together, the three JVs provide Acacia exposure to around 2 400 km2 of the prospective Houndé belt,” said the company.
This land package had been built over the past five months and represented a large and coherent land package, providing Acacia with a great opportunity to explore a well-endowed greenstone belt.
The agreements now covered an area larger than the licence areas Acacia held in either Tanzania or Kenya.
Commenting on the agreements, Acacia CEO Brad Gordon said the group was pleased to continue to expand its footprint in Burkina Faso, with the new agreements giving it further access to the most prospective trends within the Houndé belt.
“These agreements are the continuation of our strategy to build substantial land packages in the most prospective geological belts in Africa. We are looking forward to starting our exploration programmes on the properties and will continue to assess exploration opportunities throughout West Africa that further support our long-term growth strategy,” he noted.