Resource development company Galileo Resources (LON:GLR) has provisionally agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Concordia copper project in South Africa.
Galileo is to earn-in 51% of the project in the north Cape Province by spending 10mln rand, which is roughly £470,000.
It will have the option of acquiring a further 29% interest in Concordia by issuing 30mln Galileo shares following completion of the earn-in.
The Concordia project covers a very large copper mineralised area in a copper mining district that historically has been prolific but which has not yet been completely studied for its open pit potential.
Five potential mineralised pit zones have been identified within a 10 square kilometre radius on the Concordia project area covering 36 372 hectares.
Galileo considers the previous focus on steeply dipping veins (underground mining) is not now appropriate, and preliminary modelling supports this prognosis, indicating major surface mining potential.
There is a huge database available for initial examination with 123,000 metres of drilling results to study.
“This opportunity ticks every box of our search criteria and the acquisition could only have been achieved in the current environment,” said Colin Bird, chief executive officer of Galileo.
“We believe Concordia has extremely good prospects for potentially delineating a world class 'super-pit' copper resource and mine. The world demand for copper is forecast to rise with short falls projected from 2025 and onwards. This is a large project in a mature mining jurisdiction," he added.