VANCOUVER — Anatolia Minerals (ANO-T) has secured full ownership of a group of mineral licenses in Turkey after a failed joint venture with Rio Tinto (RTP-N, RIO-L).
The Tunceli licenses host five known porphyry targets and include the company’s Cevizlidere copper-gold project.
Edward Dowling, president and chief executive of Anatolia, said in a press release that he was glad to have the matter settled and was ready to advance Cevizlidere.
“Since assuming the role of the designated operator in 2006, Rio Tinto was unable to progress the exploration at Cevizlidere,” said Dowling. “Anatolia is better positioned to advance the project, since the company did so prior to 2006, and today, the company has a stronger in-country capability, profile and presence, as well as a superb business partner hailing from the broader region.”
Anatolia will pay $2 million to Rio Tinto in the form of 430,000 shares, priced using the 10-day volume-weighted average price as of May 11, 2010. In turn, Anatolia secures all legal rights to the licenses and neither company will have any residual or continuing obligations or liabilities.
Anatolia’s stock price jumped 53¢ or 12% on the news of the licenses to close at $4.79.
An initial resource estimate on Cevizlidere, released last September, outlined an inferred resource of 446 million tonnes grading 0.38% copper, 0.11 gram gold per tonne plus molybdenum. Anatolia plans further drilling on the property later this year to upgrade inferred resources to the indicated category and to explore untested parts of the property.
The project, in east-central Turkey, is 50 km southeast of Anatolia’s 95%-owned open-pit heap-leach Copler gold project. The company is building a mine at Copler, with production expected to start by year-end.
Copler hosts 40.8 million tonnes of oxide reserves grading 1.65 grams gold and 3.75 grams silver per tonne for 2.2 million contained gold oz. and 4.9 million contained silver oz.
The company expects to produce about 175,000 oz. gold per year from Copler once it is in full production at a cash cost of US$260 per oz.
In January, the company completed a drill program on the underlying sulfide gold deposit at Copler to expand the resource. The latest results included 25.4 metres grading 4.15 grams gold, 21 metres grading 11.28 grams gold and 8.7 metres grading 4.08 grams gold.
Based on the results of the drill program, the company will advance the sulphide project towards a prefeasibility study that should be completed by year-end. The company is also working to update a resource estimate that will be included into the study.
The company has a 52-week share price range between $2.01 and $5.09, and 138 million shares outstanding.
Be the first to comment on "Anatolia secures Tunceli licenses"