Power Metal Resources PLC (LON:POW) has taken an option to acquire a 100% interest in four gold exploration properties in the prospective Hemlo and Schreiber area of Ontario, Canada, while also hailing the completion of the first drill programme at its part-owned Haneti project in Tanzania.
The AIM-listed company said the Ontario option agreement would see it pay up to C$260,000, half in cash and half in shares, based on an issue price of its shares of 3p apiece.
READ: Power Metal Resources snaps up three Canadian gold exploration projects
The four properties covered by the option agreement are situated within 100km of Power Metals’ new Hemlo North gold project, which consists of three 100% properties bought last week.
The McKellar, Enable, Coco East and Magical option properties cover 12.3, 8.7, 6.4, and 3.0 square kilometres respectively, with a nearly 150 combined individual mining claims.
If it takes up the option, Power Metal said preliminary exploration work planned will include both remote sensing data interpretation and ground-based fieldwork with systematic soil sampling and geophysics expected to yield defined targets for future drill testing.
Chief executive Paul Johnson said, alongside Hemlo North, the option properties would give Power Metal a “significant footprint in the Hemlo/Schreiber district, with ground tenure close to existing mines or other local properties subject to active exploration”.
“We have moved quickly to secure these interests but given the assessment work involved across four individual properties, we have also secured a 30-day option period to enable due diligence work to be undertaken carefully on the option properties.
“Shareholders will see with our recent actions that we are building a significant portfolio of precious metal interests in North America and that is something we intend to continue should the right opportunities continue to remain available to the company."
The vendors of the option, a consortium led by established local prospector Brian Fowler who also sold the Hemlo North project, has agreed a 30-day option for Power Metal to undertake due diligence on the properties.
A non-refundable option fee is payable to the vendors of C$10,000.
Tanzania update
At Haneti in Tanzania, where Power Metal holds a 35% ownership interest with the rest owned by Katoro Gold plc (LON:KAT), the maiden drill programme has been completed with 1,965m of drilling completed over 50 holes at Mihanza Hill and Mwaka Hill.
Of the 1,965 samples collected, 776 three metre composite samples have been prepared with a quality assurance/quality control sample inserted every 10 samples, and all sent to accredited assay laboratory SGS Tanzania.
The samples will be analysed using the multi-element Aqua Regia Digestion/ICP-OES method, with 13 select samples to also be tested using Fire Assay for gold, platinum and palladium, with four rock samples collected from mapping also sent to SGS for assay.
Johnson added: “The successful completion of the maiden drill programme at Haneti is another positive step forward and with samples now dispatched to the laboratory, we eagerly await the assay results.
“I am grateful to the operating team who worked hard over the traditional Christmas season to implement this programme successfully, particularly given the challenging weather conditions towards the latter half of the programme."
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