Newstrike buys Goldcorp’s stake in Mexican project for $52 million

An advanced-stage gold project in Mexico held by majors Goldcorp (G-T) and Teck Resources (TCK-T, TCK-N) will soon be in the hands of two Canadian juniors.

Goldcorp announced today that it  has agreed to sell its 21.2% stake in the Morelos gold project in Guerrero, Mexico, to Newstrike Capital (NES.H-V) for about $52 million in cash and shares.

Newstrike will pay Goldcorp $44.5 million in cash plus 15 million shares for the project which is spread over about 290 sq. km. Newstrike already had an 810 sq. km of exploration ground in the Guerror gold belt.

Gleichen Resources (GRL-V), the Morelos operator, holds the remaining 78.8% of the project.  Gleichen bought the project off Teck for US$150 million and a 4.9% stake in Gleichen in November.

The project has a measured in indicated resource of 28 million tonnes grading 3.2 grams gold per tonne for 2.97 million oz. gold plus another 900,000 oz. of the same grade under the inferred category.

Gleichen plans to complete a feasibility study by early 2011 at which time it will make a production decision.

Morelos is located about 200 km southwest of Mexico City. Exploration dates back to just 1998 in the general project area, and mineralization for the main deposits, El Limon and Los Guajes and Guajes West was discovered in 2000, 2001 and 2002, respectively.

Both open pit and a combination of underground and open pit methods have been considered, with ore processed through a conventional gold cyanidation plant.

Newstrike shares were down 4¢ today to 43¢ apiece on a trading volume of 657,000 shares. The company has 62 million shares outstanding and a market cap of $26.7 million.

Gleichen shares were unchanged at $1.24 apiece on a trading volume of 404,000 shares. Gleichen has 29.8 million shares outstanding and a market cap of $36.9 million.