Meteoric Resources sheds Quebec projects to Rafaella as it begins to drill for gold in WA
Divesting non-core Canadian assets will enable Meteoric to focus on its high-grade gold projects in WA and Brazil.
Meteoric Resources (ASX: MEI) has signed a conditional sales agreement to offload its Midrim and LaForce nickel copper projects in Quebec to Rafaella Resources (ASX: RFR).
The move coincides with the start of drilling at Meteoric’s Palm Springs gold project in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
With that, and projects in Brazil, Meteoric has become a gold focused explorer.
For the buyer, Rafaella, the deal means more diversification, with these new projects adding to its Santa Comba tungsten project in Spain, copper in Yukon and gold in WA.
Meteoric will receive 13.05 million Rafaella shares as payment for the Quebec properties which lie on the Belleterre-Anglaise greenstone belt in the Canadian province.
Meteoric managing director Andrew Tunks described the agreement as a “fantastic result” for his company.
“With our sole focus being on our highly prospective Western Australian and Brazilian gold projects, we did not have enough bandwidth to properly explore the Midrim and La Force projects,” he added.
He said Rafaella was in a better position to further those projects.
Drilling to begin at Palm Springs gold project
Meteoric acquired the 12,000 hectare Palm Springs project in June this year.
Palm Springs includes the old Butchers Creek shallow open pit which was mined in the late 1990s but closed due to the falling gold price at that time.
The mine produced 52,000 ounces at 2.1 grams per tonne.
Meteoric’s drilling is to begin there this week, with the rig targeting a layer of high-grade ore below shallow lower grade zones south of the historic pit.
The company has said there are 60 known gold occurrences along a 20km strike length.
Meteoric owns 100% of 24 tenements on the western end of the Alta Floresta Belt in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso – the area home to more than 40 known gold deposits, including mines operated by Anglo American and Vale.
The current drilling program there will test extensions of intercepts reported from the 2019 exploration program. These included 20.6m at 94.9g/t gold and 14.0m at 81.7g/t gold.
The 2020 program is focusing on increasing the size of the current epithermal resources and converting inferred ounces into the indicated category.