By Samantha James
September 11, 2015
Minotaur Exploration has taken over where Glencore left off at Red Metal’s Corkwood project in the Cloncurry region, entering a heads of agreement to acquire a 51 per cent interest in the joint venture.
Glencore (through Xstrata) entered the JV with Red Metal in 2011 for the right to earn between 51 per cent and 60 per cent of the Corkwood tenements. Minotaur would acquire Glencore’s right to earn interest in the tenements by spending $3 million across three years. Following this it could elect to earn a further 19 per cent by sole funding another $3 million of exploration across two years.
Corkwood contains the Jimmy’s Creek breccia prospect, which had returned drilling results including 153m grading 0.4 per cent copper, 0.1 grams per tonne of gold and 10g/t of silver.
Minotaur is also part of two JV’s with Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) near Cloncurry where JOGMEC is providing the majority of exploration funding.
Minotaur said in its June presentation that it believed the “relative stability” of its share prices in the first quarter of 2015 “may be early evidence of the bottom of the cycle”.
The company was well-placed in the sector, having minimal funding obligations in Queensland and participating in a $2 million drilling partnership in South Australia with the South Australian Department of State Development, Deep Exploration Technologies CRC and Kingston Resources to explore the southern margin of the Gawler Range Volcanics.
Minotaur had about $4.2 million in cash at the close of the 2015 financial year, with most junior explorers averaging around $2.4 million during the third quarter of the year.
