ORONTO (miningweekly.com) – British Virgin Islands-based West African explorer Taurus Gold has entered into a joint venture (JV) agreement with Randgold Resources to explore and potentially develop the Bakolobi gold project, located 30 km south of Randgold's Loulo mine, in Mali's south-west.
Under the terms of the agreement, Randgold would fund all costs to complete a prefeasibility study for the project, and the company would be bound by minimum yearly work commitments.
Randgold would initially own a 51% interest in the JV, which it could increase to 65% by funding a feasibility study, if Taurus did not want to do so, or if Taurus failed to fund its proportionate share of the cost.
Further, upon completing the feasibility study, each party would be required to fund its proportionate share of all development and mining costs, failing which, its participating interest would be subject to dilution.
“Taurus believes that Randgold is the perfect strategic partner for this project with its record of successfully developing gold projects in West Africa, allowing Taurus to focus its resources on its advanced projects in Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso. Taurus will retain a material interest in the project, while removing any funding requirement until it has advanced to the feasibility study stage,” Taurus Gold chairperson Jonathan Schneider said.
The 120 km2 Bakolobi permit is located in the south-western corner of Mali, near the Senegalese border, in a prolific gold province where more than 27.3-million ounces of gold have been discovered. The permit area is bisected by among others, a significant gold-bearing shear zone known as the Fekola shear zone, which was host to Papillon Resources' 4.2-million-ounce Fekola project, which was located 3 km south of Bakolobi.
I find this interesting for the fact that I reckon Randgold knows the potential size of Fekola and our extension drilling outside Fekola, so rather than make a tilt for PIR, why not link up with Taurus and try to recreate what PIR has.
I'll have a bit more of a look on the w/e but it seems Taurus only got the rights to this ground in Nov 2012 and Randgold are jumping in before others do ... nearology!
If this turns out to be good, I would be dissapointed that PIR didn't make a tilt in someway or another, but then again I can't find any drill results for them so it seems Randgold are gambling on this OR know something.
PIR Price at posting:
76.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
