Mont Royal Resources unveils farm-in to Quebec copper-gold project
Mont Royal Resources has entered an option to earn up to 70% in the Wapatik project by spending over $7 million on exploration.
Mont Royal Resources (ASX: MRZ) has entered a binding joint venture option with a Toronto Venture Exchange listed company to earn a 70% in the Wapatik copper-gold project in the Canadian province of Quebec.
The project consists of 220 claims totalling 115sq km in continuous tenure. The company describes it as under-explored with highly limited modern exploration.
Wapatik is located in the James Bay area, which Mont Royal calls a tier one mining jurisdiction. The vendor is Azimut Exploration (TSXV: AZM).
The agreement covers a two-stage farm in, spending C$4 million (A$4.17 million) to gain 50% and, as a second stage, C$3 million (A$3.12 million) to earn an additional 20%. There will also be cash payments of C$80,000 (A$83,313) and C$120,000 (A$124,969), respectively.
Azimut also owns the nearby Elmer property, which contains its Patwon discovery.
Drilling in January at the Patwon discovery returned 101.3m at 0.62 grams per tonne gold, 102m at 3.15g/t and 108.2m at 2.84g/t gold.
Great geology, cheap power
Mont Royal executive director Peter Ruse said the company was looking forward to a long-term working relationship with Azimut Exploration at what he described as “an extremely attractive opportunity”.
The Canadian company has proprietary technology and extensive exploration experience in this region, he added.
“The province, which is strongly familiar to our board, is arguably one of the most attractive global exploration locations, with great geology, road access, cheap power, and a highly supportive government regulatory environment,” Mr Ruse said.
Mont Royal said the most prospective unit at Wapatik appears to be the Kauputauch Formation, which is the same formation that hosts the Patwon discovery.
“The geological targets will be shear-hosted gold, intrusion-related copper-gold, and copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry systems,” the company said.
New project lies near Patwon gold discovery
Previous work at this property consists of regional geological mapping, geophysical surveys, regional lake-bottom sediment geochemical surveys and rock chip sampling.
Wapatik lies 12km from the Patwon discovery. It is also located within the Societe du Plan Nord, where the Quebec provincial government want to use mineral resources developments to generate economic spin-offs.
Quebec produced 33.7% of Canada’s gold in 2018 (2.16 million ounces), second only to Ontario.
Mont Royal, which listed on the ASX in April 2019, also owns the Edjudina gold project in Western Australia. Those tenements cover 24 sq km, 170km northeast of Kalgoorlie.
The company said the geology at Edjudina consists of mafic, ultramafic and felsic sedimentary units which have the potential to host lode-style gold deposits. Neighbouring gold explorers and producers include Saracen Minerals (ASX: SAR).