Tempus Resources to acquire high-grade, advanced gold project in British Columbia

Perth-based Tempus Resources (ASX: TMR) is set to acquire 100% of the shares in Sona Resources Corp – owner of the historic high-grade Blackdome-Elizabeth gold project located in Canada’s prolific British Columbia region.

Under the terms of a binding heads of agreement, Tempus will acquire the advanced project through the payment of C$500,000 cash, commencing with a C$50,000 non-refundable payment within seven days.

The balance of C$450,000 must be paid within three months of the agreement date, with discounts of up to C$50,000 for earlier completion.

Under-explored project

Tempus said Blackdome-Elizabeth is underexplored and remains highly-prospective for extensions of existing resource-bearing mineralisation, and for discovering new mineralised areas.

Significant bonanza-grade gold intercepts from drilling in 2011 included 5.06m at 76.5 grams per tonne gold, 2.50m at 96.3g/t gold, 0.91m at 134.9g/t gold and 1.46m at 45.1g/t gold.

The company’s technical team has conducted a preliminary review of the data and remains “very encouraged” by the continuity of high-grade gold veins which are open at depth and along strike, as well as the broader prospectivity of the 315 square kilometre land package.

“Blackdome-Elizabeth provides our shareholders with exposure to an advanced high-grade asset with a demonstrated history of gold production,” said executive director Brendan Borg.

The acquisition complements Tempus’ early-stage Zamora gold exploration assets in southern Ecuador, acquired in May from Condor Gold SA and MiningSources SA.

The assets are adjacent to Lundin Gold’s high-grade, multi-million ounce Fruta del Norte deposit which hosts an indicated mineral resource of 23.8Mt at 9.61g/t gold and an inferred resource of 11.6Mt at 5.69g/t gold.

Mineralisation styles

The Blackdome-Elizabeth gold project comprises two separate mineralisation styles in the Elizabeth and Blackdome zones.

Elizabeth is located approximately 200km north of Vancouver and 35km northeast of the historic Bralorne mine, which produced 4.2Moz at 17.7g/t gold between 1928 and 1971.

The zone’s auriferous quartz vein mineralisation is analogous to that found at Bralorne and an inferred mineral resource estimate in 2009 reported 206,000oz at 12.26g/t gold.

Drilling to date has focused on shallow mineralisation from two quartz veins to approximately 200m below surface.

Blackdome is located 30km to the north of Elizabeth and previously produced 225,000oz at 20g/t gold.

A 2010 resource estimate reported 52,600oz at 11.29g/t gold indicated and 25,900oz at 8.79g/t inferred, consistent with low-sulphidation, structurally-controlled, epithermal gold mineralisation.

Existing infrastructure

Blackdome comprises a fully-permitted, 300 tonnes per day tailings facility and mill which have been under care and maintenance but remain in good standing for future production.

A 25-man exploration camp is located at the Elizabeth deposit, and an existing development plan includes construction of 4km of haul road and upgrades to 35km of existing road to link it to the Blackdome mine.

During the due diligence period following the acquisition announcement, Tempus said it would engage consultants to review the project and recommend any further work required to update the foreign mineral resource estimates and historical preliminary economic assessment.

The company will then commence a full feasibility study, for completion before the end of 2020.

At mid-afternoon, shares in Tempus were trading 28.57% higher at $0.18.