Junior explorer Aurora Minerals (ASX:ARM) is seeking to take up to an 80% interest in the advanced stage Whim Creek copper zinc project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
Aurora will acquire up to an 80% stake in the project via an Earn in and Joint Venture Agreement with current owner VentureX Resources.
Importantly for Aurora, the project represents a major opportunity to apply its ore-sorting technology to economically produce metals. With crushing and heap leach infrastructure on site, Aurora will seek to produce pre-concentrates and recovered metals from the newly mined ores and sorted rejects.
Whim Creek lies within a highly prospective base metal and gold belt 115 kilometres south west of Port Hedland and includes a substantial volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineral resource in addition to a series of highly prospective copper, zinc and gold exploration targets.
The project consists of the Mons Cupri, Whim Creek, Salt Creek and Evelyn VMS deposits as well as tenements covering 18,000 hectares of the highly prospective Whim Creek and Mallina basins.
Whim Creek lies in a good neighbourhood adjacent to De Grey’s Mallina project tenure and to the north of both the DGO Gold’s Mallina tenure and the Kairos Minerals’ Skywell Project.
The project also has offices, workshops and established water supplies on site.
Aurora will need to pay an initial $150,000 cash deposit and spend up to $1.5 million on the project to earn up to the 80% over a 15-month period. To maintain the 80% interest, the company will then need to spend a further $2.5 million over a four-year period.
In addition, Aurora must pay $3 million in $1 million instalments over a three-year period commencing on the second anniversary of the Transaction.
Aurora is currently seeking to raise up to $2 million at a price to be determined, to add to its existing cash reserves of ~$3 million and ~$2.5m in listed securities.
The company is seeking approval of its shareholders for the transaction and public offer, and must re-comply with Chapters 1 and 2 of the Listing Rules.
The company was trading at 2.2c prior to its shares being suspended from trading ahead of re-complying with Chapters 1 and 2.
