Intrepid, Vale extend deadline for acquisition documentation
Thursday, October 1 2009 - 03:27 AM WIB
The deadline for the completion of "all formal and binding documentation" has been extended to Dec. 15, 2009, Intrepid said in a statement on Thursday.
The Australian firm signed in July this year a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with Vale Exploration Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vale, granting the latter an option to acquire a stake in the Tujuh Bukit project.
Under the HoA, Vale, the world?s second largest mining company by value, could earn a 60 percent stake in a joint venture company holding the rights to the Tujuh Bukit project by, among others, spending a total of US$40 million.
Intrepid and its Indonesian partner PT Indo Multi Niaga would retain the remaining 40 percent interest in the project, and will be free carried by Vale through to completion of a bankable feasibility study.
Intrepid will retain 80 percent of the significant, near-surface, gold-silver oxide cap.
Tujuh Bukit covers approximately 11,600 hectares in an area about 205 kilometres southeast of Surabaya, East Java provincial capital.
Preliminary exploration, including diamond drilling on two (Zones A&C) of multiple zones being examined around the oxide deposit, has determined a National Instrument 43-101-compliant aggregate Inferred oxide resource of 2.57 million ounces gold equivalent (gold + silver) grading ~1grams per tonne (g/t) at 0.5g/t gold equivalent cut off.
Additional drilling on Zones B and B South have also encountered encouraging mineralization, confirming additional gold-silver potential.
Deeper drilling below the oxidized zone of the project intersected extremely encouraging assays from a related but separate porphyry copper-gold zone, including one hole, GTD 08-35, that intercepted 627 metres of 0.5 g/t gold and 0.5 percent copper. (denny)