Regis Resources Limited (ASX: RRL) is to outlay up to $25 million to expand its flagship Duketon Operations in central Western Australia.
The strategic package of tenements acquired from Duketon Mining Limited surround Regis’ Duketon Operations, which incudes three mills and will add exploration upside and extend the life of the project.
The deal, which includes an initial $20 million payment, will see Regis acquire 35 tenements, of which 32 are granted Exploration Licenses with three applications pending together with the gold rights on licence M38/1252.
The tenements acquired lie along strike and adjacent to Regis’ landholding including the Rosemont, Garden Well and Moolart Well Gold Mines and increases Regis’ landholding in the Duketon Greenstone Belt (DGB) by approximately 2000 sq. km.
Regis Managing Director, Jim Beyer, said the the considerable expansion of the company’s landholding around its three mills provides a tremendous opportunity to invest further in exploration to expand the resource base and extend the mine life of the Duketon Operations.
“Being able to accelerate greenfields exploration in an area which has previously been underexplored and is host to major shear zones and the extension of our existing orebodies is an immediate opportunity for the company,” Mr Beyer said.
“We are very excited to be able to apply our knowledge of the mineralisation and deposits at Duketon to work towards further exploration success.”
Mr Beyer said the tenement acquisition includes multiple advanced gold exploration prospects which will be the focus of immediate exploration and could potentially become resources for processing at Moolart Well, Garden Well or Rosemont.
Immediate work will be undertaken to define the extent of known gold mineralisation at multiple prospects including: Lancefield North, McKenzie Well and Golden Star.
Mr Bayer said that in addition to the currently identified targets, a broader programme of surface sampling will commence immediately across the newly acquired tenure to provide a comprehensive geochemical dataset.
This will be added to the existing database to generate new targets. Regis will also extend its current greenfields drilling and mapping programs to assess the full strike extent of the underexplored areas including the structural setting around the late sedimentary basin on the western margin of the DGB.
