Newcrest Mining has chosen to proceed to stage one of its farm-in agreement with Antipa Minerals at the Wilki project in Western Australia after satisfying its initial commitment to the venture.
The company will look to invest an additional $10 million of exploration expenditure into the project by March 2025, earning it a 51 per cent interest. It can extend this period by up to two years if needed.
Following stage one, Newcrest has the potential to earn up to 75 per cent of Wilki if it has spent $44 million in exploration expenditure by March 2028 – a deadline it can extend by two years in the case of any earlier extension.
Antipa will remain operator of Wilki until the completion of the current programme of works, scheduled to conclude in the first quarter of 2022.
Newcrest can then assume management of the operations for the remainder of stage one or Antipa can remain operator. The company had to spend $6 million across two years in Wilki exploration expenditure to reach this point.
The farm-in was first announced in February 2020 and relates to a 2260 square kilometre section of Antipa’s southern landholding in the Paterson province.
Wilki surrounds Newcrest’s Telfer copper-gold-silver operation and is proximate to the Havieron copper-gold exploration project shared by Newcrest and Greatland Gold.
Existing mineral resources at the Chicken Ranch and Tim’s Dome deposits are also included in the Wilki project area, along with multiple defined greenfields exploration targets considered analogous to Havieron.
It comes after Greatland Gold executed a $US16 million ($22.23 million) fundraising campaign this week to further consolidate the Havieron project.
A total of 82 million shares were placed at an issue price of 14.5 pence ($0.018) per share, which represented a 10.5 per cent discount on Greatland’s closing share price on November 17.
Greatland and Newcrest hope to bring Havieron into production in 2024.