Australian Potash Ltd (ASX:APC) has welcomed St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) completing its expenditure requirements to gain a 70% interest in the Lake Wells Gold Project in Western Australia.
The gold producer has passed the $5 million expenditure commitment of the earn-in and joint venture agreement relating to non-potash materials on APC's Lake Wells SOP Project.
APC and SBM have now formed an unincorporated joint venture to continue the exploration, development and future potential mining of non-potash resources on the project.
Under the terms of the Aareement, APC shall not be obliged to make any contribution to project expenditure until such time as SBM has completed a bankable feasibility study into the development of any non-potash orebody within the project tenements.
Potential to host significant gold deposit
In January St Barbara continued to expand the footprint and tenor of mineralisation at Lake Wells with a mineralised corridor exceeding 9 kilometres and with high-grade aircore results including 1-metre at 3.88 g/t gold from 47 metres, 3 metres at 2.03 g/t from 62 metres and 1-metre at 5.53 g/t from 62 metres.
Chief executive officer Matt Shackleton said at the time that these results confirmed APC’s belief that the Lake Wells Gold Project had the potential to host a significant gold deposit.
The Lake Wells Gold Project is in the Yamarna region of Western Australia with adjacent tenement holder Gold Road Resources Ltd (ASX:GOR) continuing to demonstrate the underexplored nature of the Yamarna Belt and the potential to delineate deposits of merit.
With more than 1.1 million ounces currently delineated along the Yamarna Shear Zone, including the Golden Highway deposits, APC's Southern Yamarna Anomaly Camp (SYAC) is proving to extend this well-established mineralised corridor to more than 70 kilometres to the north-northwest.