REG - ECR Minerals PLC - Diamond Drilling Commences at Tambo Gold Project

ECR MineralsAnnouncement

17/10/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 5099I  ECR Minerals PLC  17 October 2024

17 October 2024

 

ECR MINERALS PLC

 

("ECR Minerals", "ECR" or the "Company")

 

Diamond Drilling Commences at Tambo Gold Project, Victoria

and

Fourth Company in Discussions on Potential Sale of A$75 Million Tax Losses

ECR Minerals plc (LON: ECR), the exploration and development company focused
on gold in Australia, is pleased to announce the commencement of diamond
drilling at the Company's Tambo Gold Project in Victoria, Australia (the
"Tambo Gold Project"), as well as providing an update on corporate activities.

HIGHLIGHTS

●     Maiden diamond drilling campaign now underway at the Tambo Gold
Project

●     Fourth confidentiality agreement signed with Australia-domiciled
company in relation to the potential sale of ECR's A$75 million of tax losses

●     Laboratory analysis of 378 rock chips taken from gold prospects at
the Lolworth Project in Queensland has now completed and full results expected
later this month

 

Tambo Gold Project, Victoria

Further to the Company's announcement on 9 October 2024, the maiden diamond
drilling campaign has commenced at the Tambo Gold Project targeting beneath
the historical workings of the Duke of Cornwall Mine, Swifts Creek. The
drilling programme is expected to take approximately two weeks with up to 500
metres of aggregate depth planned, although the exact profile of the campaign
will be determined on site.  Previous rock chip assays from direct outcrop
and exposures around and within the old workings include results of 22.85 g/t
Au, 26.25 g/t Au and 52.2 g/t Au coupled with highly anomalous gold in soils.
Initial results are expected in November 2024.

 

Update on Potential Sale of Tax Losses

Further to the Company's announcements of 9 October 2024 and 2 July 2024, ECR,
through its engagement with Argonaut PCF Ltd, has signed an additional
non-disclosure agreement and is now in discussions with four
Australia-domiciled public and private companies in relation to the potential
sale of its A$75 million of tax losses.

 

ECR's tax losses are held within its wholly owned subsidiary, Mercator Gold
Australia Pty Ltd, and were incurred during the period from 2006 to date. Any
sale of the tax losses would be coupled with a disposal of certain non-core
assets of the Company.  Whilst no guarantee can be given as to any potential
sale or agreement being reached or as to the timing or terms, the board of
directors of ECR continues to be encouraged by the considerable interest shown
in this potentially valuable asset.

 

Lolworth, Queensland,

Laboratory analysis of 378 rock chips recently taken from gold prospects at
the Lolworth Project in Queensland, including Butterfly Creek, Uncle Terry and
Gorge Creek has now been completed. Once the Company receives the data, the
next step will be for management to undertake a detailed review of this
information to contextualise the data within the overall project area.  It is
therefore expected that the full results will be announced by the end of the
month.  Initial field work across the Lolworth Project showed promising
signs, including visible gold in streams and hillsides.   A further
announcement will be made in due course.

 

As announced on 3 October 2024, ECR Minerals is working in partnership with
the Geological Survey of Queensland ("GSQ") to further investigate the
critical minerals potential at the Lolworth Project. The results from
geochemical analysis on samples taken from the Oaky Creek prospect in the
central-north area of the project will be announced once received. Stream
sampling in this area has previously detected Niobium in concentrate samples
and geochemical analysis will be carried out by the GSQ on pegmatites to
better understand their fertility for hosting critical minerals, in particular
Niobium and Tantalum.

 

Mike Whitlow, ECR's Managing Director, said: "I'm very pleased to announce
that the diamond drill rig has arrived at the Tambo Gold Project, marking the
beginning of our highly anticipated maiden drilling campaign at this site. Our
initial work at the Tambo Gold Project has been very promising with high-grade
gold results in rock chips reinforcing our confidence in the potential of this
asset. We look forward to confirming and expanding on these results, which is
expected in November 2024. I'm also encouraged by the growing interest in our
tax losses from both private and public companies, with several requests for
confidentiality agreements. As we've said previously the potential value of
any transaction could be significant for ECR. We are expecting a steady stream
of updates across  our core projects in the coming weeks and months and I
look forward to reporting back on the rock chip results from Lolworth once
further analysis has been conducted.''

 

REVIEW OF ANNOUNCEMENT BY QUALIFIED PERSON

This announcement has been reviewed by Adam Jones, Chief Geologist at ECR
Minerals Plc. Adam Jones is a professional geologist and is a Member of
the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (MAIG). He is a qualified person
as that term is defined by the AIM Note for Mining, Oil and Gas Companies.

 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

 

 ECR Minerals Plc                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Tel: +44 (0) 1738 317 693
 Nick Tulloch, Chairman

 Andrew Scott, Director

 Email:

 info@ecrminerals.com (mailto:info@ecrminerals.com)
 Website: www.ecrminerals.com
 (http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecrminerals.com%2F&esheet=51817334&newsitemid=20180605005810&lan=en-US&anchor=www.ecrminerals.com&index=1&md5=820ad49dc1fc2c84a0538453c017bc1b)

 Allenby Capital Limited                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Tel: +44 (0) 3328 5656
 Nominated Adviser                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    info@allenbycapital.com (mailto:info@allenbycapital.com)

 Nick Naylor / Alex Brearley / Vivek Bhardwaj

 Axis Capital Markets Limited                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Tel: +44 (0) 203 026 0320
 Broker
 Ben Tadd / Lewis Jones

 SI Capital Ltd                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Tel: +44 (0) 1483 413500
 Broker
 Nick Emerson

 Brand Communications                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Tel: +44 (0) 7976 431608
 Public & Investor Relations
 Alan Green

 

Glossary

 

 Au:    Gold
 g/t:   Grammes per Tonne (Metric)
 km:    Kilometres (Metric)
 km²:   Kilometre squared (Metric)

 

ABOUT ECR MINERALS PLC

 

ECR Minerals is a mineral exploration and development company. ECR's wholly
owned Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd ("MGA") has 100%
ownership of the Bailieston and Creswick gold projects in central Victoria,
Australia, has six licence applications outstanding which includes one licence
application lodged in eastern Victoria (Tambo gold project).

 

ECR also owns 100% of an Australian subsidiary LUX Exploration Pty Ltd ("LUX")
which has three approved exploration permits covering 946 km2 over a
relatively unexplored area in Lolworth Range, Queensland, Australia. The
Company has also submitted a license application at Kondaparinga which is
approximately 120km2 in area and located within the Hodgkinson Gold
Province, 80km NW of Mareeba, North Queensland.

 

Following the sale of the Avoca, Moormbool and Timor gold projects in
Victoria, Australia to Fosterville South Exploration Ltd (TSX-V: FSX) and the
subsequent spin-out of the Avoca and Timor projects to Leviathan Gold Ltd
(TSX-V: LVX), MGA has the right to receive up to A$2 million in payments
subject to future resource estimation or production from projects sold to
Fosterville South Exploration Limited.  ECR also holds a royalty on the SLM
gold project in La Rioja Province, Argentina.

 

MGA also has approximately A$75 million of unutilised tax losses incurred
during previous operations.

 

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