Greatland Gold and Rio Tinto have entered into a farm-in and joint venture agreement to accelerate exploration across highly prospective tenure across the Paterson south project.
The Paterson South project is located in the Paterson region of Western Australia, which is one of the most prospective frontiers in the country for the discovery of multi-cycle, tier-one gold-copper deposits.
Greatland is entitled to earn up to a 75 per cent joint venture interest in the project tenements under the two-stage farm-in arrangement.
Stage 1 states that Greatland is entitled to earn a 51 per cent joint venture interest in the Paterson project by incurring at least $7.1 million of exploration expenditure and completing 7500 metres of drilling within four years.
Stage 2 states that Greatland is entitled to earn an additional 24 per cent joint venture interest in the Paterson project by spending at least an additional $14 million on exploration expenditure, and completing a further 17,000 metres of drilling within three years of completing Stage 1.
The eastern group of the Paterson project tenements host several underexplored magnetic anomalies. These targets are within proterozoic sediments and are considered by Greatland to be the closest to a Havieron lookalike within the Paterson Province. The Havieron project is a joint venture between Greatland and Newcrest.
The project’s western group’s tenements have a geological setting which has a strong correlation to the Telfer deposit, which Newcrest wholly owns.
Greatland managing director Shaun Day said the Paterson project is a great opportunity with a number of high priority, high prospective and heritage cleared drill targets.
“We expect that some of these targets can be incorporated in our 2023 drilling campaign,” Day said.
“Our farm-in and joint venture with Rio Tinto is consistent with our strategy of continuing to invest in exploration success, and aligns the companies responsible for the discovery of Havieron and Winu, the two biggest and most significant orebodies found within the Paterson Province since Telfer in the 1970s.”