Cornerstone Capital Resources and its subsidiary Cañabrava Mining have signed a binding option and farm-in agreement with Newcrest International for Cornerstone's Caña Brava and Tioloma properties in Ecuador, targeting epithermal gold-silver and porphyry gold-copper deposits in south central Ecuador.
Image: A gold mineral. Photo: courtesy of carlos aguilar/Freeimages.com.
This Agreement implements and replaces the Heads of Agreement announced February 19, 2019.
President and CEO Brooke Macdonald said: “Newcrest is one of the largest gold mining companies in the world, operating mines in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia, and we are pleased to have entered into this Agreement with them. Newcrest is also partnering with us on the Miocene project in Chile (see news release dated December 10, 2018). We look forward to working with the Newcrest team on these properties.
Cornerstone applauds the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment (ME)’s issuance in March of Ministerial Accord 020 (amending Ministerial Accord 009 of January 24, 2019), being the regulations for “scout (exploratory) drilling” using up to 30 drill platforms during the initial exploration phase of an exploration project, and the issuance in the last week of the Application Form to obtain an environmental registration the obtainment of which is a condition to benefit from the scout drilling program. Cornerstone is studying the Application Format and expects to make an application for scout drilling in the coming months.
In the meantime, Cornerstone continues to advance its almost completed environmental impact assessment (EIA) for Caña Brava that would provide for drilling during the initial and advanced stages of exploration and beyond during the economic evaluation phase and expects to be submitting the EIA to ME for comments within 4 to 6 weeks’ time.
Teams from both companies are already meeting to define work programs and activities to be implemented in the following weeks and months.”
Source: Company Press Release.