Brisbane, July 8, 2008 AEST (ABN Newswire) - North Queensland Metals Limited (ASX:NQM) has completed the acquisition of EPM 14016, which borders NQM's EPM 14741 tenement west of Herberton, in far north Queensland.
NQM has acquired EPM 14016 from Dianne Mining Corporation, having paid an initial instalment of $1.4 million. A further $500,000 is payable in six months. Whereas the original deal required the issue of new shares, the final arrangement was all cash, delivering better value for current shareholders.
Announcing the acquisition, NQM Chief Executive Officer Mr John McKinstry said:
"This important tenement, with its highly prospective former mines and other exploration targets, confirms NQM's dominant position in the Herberton mineral field.
"Our immediate priority is increasing copper Reserves alongside Baal Gammon where we are developing a copper/tin/silver/indium mine. As reported back in November, the EPM allows a small extension of the Baal Gammon pit, but more importantly secures the opportunity to drill two targets immediately to the north."
Baal Gammon will be the second of NQM's operations. NQM currently operates the Pajingo gold mine (60% NQM ownership). As announced on 9 May 2008, the Baal Gammon project is scheduled for commissioning in late 2009, and is expected to mine and process approximately 500,000 tonnes per year over a seven year life producing around 20,000 tonnes of concentrate per year.
"This latest tenement acquisition gives us immediate exploration access to the prospective ground approximately 1km to the north of the Baal Gammon deposit," Mr McKinstry said. "Aeromagnetic surveys have shown the presence of two magnetic anomalies which have a similar signature to Baal Gammon.
Previous exploration of one of the two anomalies confirmed the presence of copper/tin/silver/indium mineralisation similar to Baal Gammon."
The granting of the EPM and subsequent transfer will allow the Herberton based exploration team to complete soil surveys. The exploration team has at its disposal a hand-held XRF analyser which will provide instant results on rock and chip samples.
Historical data being processed will provide information on orientation allowing drill targets to be identified and acted on. Further information on the exploration target near Baal Gammon and other targets on which NQM has extensive information within EPM 14016 was provided by NQM on 19 November 2007 in the announcement of conditional acquisition and subsequent announcement.
Other prospective targets for exploration are:
- Isabel - a zinc deposit with high indium grades within 2km of the Herberton treatment plant site.
- Orient - silver/lead/zinc deposits described in reports as 'probably the best defined and most continuous ore bodies in the Herberton field'. (A.H Voisey, Report 16, July 1979)
- Montalbion - a bonanza silver mine which produced 1.58 million ounces of silver from 39,000t ore mined from an oxide zone in the late 19th century.
- Siberia - a copper/lead/zinc prospect anomalous over 5.4km with only shallow drilling to date
Equally of interest are a number of structures which are strongly anomalous extending over both EPMs. "These types of anomalies are exactly what we hoped we would see," Mr McKinstry said. "They are not apparent on the ground, so now, by having the big picture view combined with historical activity, we have new areas of interest which cross over both EPMs."
"While the main attraction of EPM 14016 has been the possible extensions of Baal Gammon style ore, both EPM 14016 and our original tenement EPM 14741 have many other prospective areas."
EPM 14741 has been renewed for a period of four years to August 2012.
Contact
John D McKinstry
CEO
North Queensland Metals
Tel: 1300 308 832
Fax: 07 3666 0510
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