Junior Adamera Minerals has found a partner in Hochschild Mining to help advance its Cooke Mountain gold project in Washington state.
The two have signed an option agreement under which Hochschild can earn a 60% stake in the project by spending $8 million on exploration over five years. Adamera will be project operator during this earn-in phase.
Hochschild can then earn another 15% interest by funding a feasibility within three years (the company can also extend the feasibility period for another three years with further payments to Adamera of between $200,000 and $500,000 per year).
After this phase is completed, a 75/25 joint venture will be formed (or 60/40 if the phase 2 option isn’t exercised) with each company funding its pro rata share of project funding, and Hochschild becoming the operator of the JV.
“We are looking forward to working with Hochschild on the Cooke Mountain gold project; they bring very relevant expertise in high-grade gold deposits as well as the funding required to aggressively advance this project from the discovery stage through to production.” said Adamera president and CEO Mark Kolebaba, in a release. “We look forward to the excitement and rewards that accompany well funded exploration.”
Kolebaba added: “Due to limited funding over the past several years, Adamera has not been able to effectively test the many high-quality targets developed through its exploration programs. Also, new zones with mineralization discovered by Adamera simply have not been drilled enough to realize their potential. This partnership provides a means to fully test these targets.”
The project lies in a high-grade gold mining district that has seen more than 7 million oz. mined at a grade of 14.5 g/t gold, but hasn’t seen much modern exploration. A 2,000 t/d nearby mill is on care and maintance.
Adamera has defined two multi-kilometre, gold-producing trends at Cooke Mountain: the Overlook trend on the east side of the project, which contains several historic high-grade gold mines, and the Lamefoot trend, 6 km to the west, which hosts the Lamefoot mine. The company has more than 50 permits to targets on both trends. Discussions with Hochschild on the 2020 exploration program are underway.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)