Vancouver — Having just staked the Premier diamond property, Blackstone Ventures (BLV-V) has dealt a 75% interest in the Otish Mountains property to Northern Empire Minerals (NEM-V).
The 156-sq.-km property lies 85 km southwest of Ashton Mining of Canada‘s (ACA-T) recent diamond discovery and was acquired using data provided by BHP Diamonds, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BHP Billiton (BHP-N). In return for supplying the information, BHP gets a back-in right calling for the major to earn a 51% interest by spending $4 million over 4 years, plus an additional 9% by spending another $6 million. Under the deal, Blackstone must spend $1 million on the property and drill five diamond drill holes before the back-in opportunity is launched. Northern Empire has agreed to pay all the staking cost, spend $1 million on exploration and cover the costs for the first five diamond drill holes to earn a 75% interest in the project.
Both juniors began the search for diamonds in north-central Quebec earlier this month.
Some 35 km east of Ashton’s find, Northern Empire Minerals staked 77 sq. km of ground. Dubbed La Croix, the property lies along strike of the magnetic geophysical anomaly that trends through Ashton’s project. The junior plans on launching a till sampling and geophysical survey later this year.
In December, Ashton Mining sparked a staking rush by announcing the microdiamond counts from two kimberlitic bodies discovered during a first pass of drilling last fall. A 205.8-kg core sample from Renard 1 yielded 54 micros and 5 macros. (A macro measures greater than 0.5 mm in at least one dimension.) The second kimberlitic body, dubbed Renard 2, was discovered 1 km south of Renard 1. It yielded 116 micros and 29 macros from 163.1 kg of sample, including five stones registering greater than 0.5 mm in two dimensions. The three largest diamonds measured 1.63 by 1.58 by 0.53 mm, 1.44 by 1.05 by 0.6 mm, and 1.25 by 1.05 by 0.6 mm.
Ashton holds more than 1,760 sq. km of mineral permits in the Otish Mountains area in a 50-50 joint venture with Quebec government-owned Soquem. The pair has been searching for diamonds in the northern Quebec portion of the Superior Craton since 1996
Be the first to comment on "Blackstone deals Premier"