Antares bails out of Rappa Holdings

Toronto-based Antares Mining & Exploration (ANZ-T) is selling its 25% indirect interest in South Africa-based Rappa Holdings.

Rappa specializes in recovering gold and other precious metals from a variety of sources, including mine dumps and tailings, wood chips, spent carbon and carbon sludge, as well as from conventional ore. It also recovers cobalt from high-grade ore mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 1996, Antares paid $1.8 million to acquire its interest in Rappa; it now expects to receive $3.4 million in cash and shares for that interest. The purchaser is an unidentified, privately held South African-based waste management company.

Antares’ indirect interest in Rappa is represented by a 49.5% stake in Cangold Proprietary, which owns half of Rappa.

Antares’ chief assets are a 76.5% interest in the Ojolali silver-gold property in Indonesia and 37% of the Lady Lina gold mine in Zimbabwe. In addition, the company is earning a 55% stake in the Toodoggone polymetallic property in north-central British Columbia, where drilling last year encountered 4 metres grading 103.3 grams gold and 92.2 grams silver per tonne, plus 1.34% copper, 0.46% lead and 11.7% zinc.