Riversgold appoints highly credential exploration team to spur gold discoveries
Tolga Kumova recently became a substantial holder in Riversgold, owning just over 5%.
With a successful raising behind it and having unloaded its Alaskan projects, Riversgold (ASX: RGL) has signed up a new technical team to push ahead with its Australian gold projects.
Quarterback Geological Consultants has been brought on board to formulate and execute an exploration strategy for Riversgold’s ground in the eastern goldfields of Western Australia and near Olympic Dam in South Australia. They are to be paid solely on exploration success.
This follows a decision by the company to be an Australia-focused explorer. Since the beginning of May its price has run from $0.008 to more than $0.06, with well-known mining investor Tolga Kumova becoming a 5.29% holder.
Riversgold exploration portfolio
Riversgold listed on the ASX in October 2017 and has a portfolio of gold exploration projects within the eastern goldfields of Western Australia, the Tintina Gold Belt in south-west Alaska, and the Gawler Craton of South Australia along with applications in Cambodia.
In May, the company vended the most of its Alaskan gold portfolio — the Gemuk, Luna and Quicksilver projects — to private company Mamba Minerals through a cash and earn-in deal.
Riversgold is to be paid US$1 million in cash, and Mamba can earn 70% of the projects by spending US$5 million on exploration over three years.
Quarterback technical team
The Quarterback technical team consists of Simon Bolster, a former senior manager at Newmont Mining and with extensive experience exploring the eastern goldfields for Placer Dome and Normandy Exploration in the 1990s and 2000s.
Mr Bolster was involved in the 1-million ounce Mount Monger gold discovery.
He has been appointed to Riversgold’s board as a non-executive director and will receive 6 million options.
The technical team will also comprise Peter Williams and Dr Marat Abzalov.
Mr Williams was formerly chief geophysicist to WMC Resources (acquired by the then BHP Billiton in 2005) and co-founder of Independence Group, now IGO (ASX: IGO). At WMC he was part of a team that made three gold discoveries.
Dr Abzalov is a geologist with 35 years of experience and has worked for WMC Resources and Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO), at the latter being group geostatistical consultant, while at WMC he devised a 3D model of Olympic Dam that led to the discovery of more than 1 billion tonnes of additional resources.
Unlocking Riversgold’s potential
Mr Bolster said he was excited to be helping unlock the exploration potential of Riversgold’s projects.
“It’s not every day that you can get to join a company who holds more than 1,100sq km of tenements with all the right ingredients to host million-ounce gold systems,” he added
Quarterback will receive 50 million performance rights. The consultants can earn 25 million of those by announcing a JORC inferred resource of 250,000oz of gold or gold equivalent; then another 25 million if there is a JORC inferred resource of 500,000oz – both within five years.
Riversgold’s Kurnalpi project comprises 10 exploration licences and one application. It is located between east to south-east of Kalgoorlie–Boulder.
The Churchill Dam iron-oxide copper-gold (IOCG) project is in the Gawler Craton, approximately 20km west of Woomera and 90km south west of the Olympic Dam deposit.