New Talisman Gold Mines has acquired Newcrest Mining’s 80% stake in the Rahu project in New Zealand.
Prior to the transaction, the companies operated the project under a joint venture, with New Talisman holding 20% interest.
Once the share purchase plan is finalised, the company plans to proceed with the exploration programme.
New Talisman CEO Matthew Hill said: “Following discussions with Newcrest, it was agreed that New Talisman could acquire Newcrest’s 80% interest in the Rahu project.
“We are very excited by the opportunity of this drill-ready prospect and appreciate the efforts of the Newcrest team in completing this transaction in a short space of time.”
So far, 31 holes have been drilled to a total of 4,585m, intersecting anomalous Au and Ag values.
The project is estimated to contain indicated and inferred resources of 41,590oz of gold and 258,000oz of silver, with exploration targets of 14 million tonnes ranging between 0.5 gigatonnes (Gt) and 2Gt of gold for approximately 225,000oz to 920,000oz of gold.
Located north of the Karangahake Gorge, between Mackaytown and Waikino, the project lies contiguously along strike from the Talisman mine.
New Talisman recently acquired 80% of the Talisman mine from Newcrest.
The company previously completed an exploration and evaluation work programme on the project.
The programme resulted in the delineation of a 700m-wide and 1.5km-long NNE trending zone of mineralisation.