Gold royalties will remain the same in WA.
Evolution Mining has entered an agreement to acquire Canadian miner Battle North Gold for $C345 million ($356.4 million).
The deal will supply Evolution with Battle North’s Bateman gold project in the Red Lake district of Ontario, Canada.
Evolution executive chairman Jake Klein said Bateman Gold tied in to Evolution’s existing Red Lake gold mine in the Red Lake district of Canada, with the acquisition to advance Red Lake’s 300,000 ounces of gold a year production target.
“This acquisition provides Evolution with an opportunity to expand our footprint in the region and create value by leveraging the infrastructure of the two operations,” he said.
“The additional processing capacity from the new Bateman mill will also accelerate our ability to achieve our objective of producing in excess of 300,000 ounces of gold per annum from Red Lake.
“This expansion of our footprint will provide us with an opportunity to build on our track record as a safe and sustainable operator for the long term benefit of a broad range of stakeholders including the local workforce, regional communities and our Wabauskang and Lac Seul First Nation partners.”
Battle North has a mineral reserve estimate of 3.56 million tonnes at 5.4 grams per tonne for 635,000 ounces of gold with an eight-year mine life.
According to the project’s feasibility study last year, annual production is 74,000 ounces of gold with all-in sustaining costs of $US865 ($1113) per ounce.
The project’s mill facility has a capacity of processing 450,000 tonnes per annum and is expandable to 900,000 tonnes per annum.
The board of Battle North unanimously agreed to the agreement, with the transaction expected to be finalised in the second quarter of 2021.
Battle North president, chief executive and director George Ogilvie said there were significant benefits to combining Battle North and Evolution’s Red Lake assets.
“We believe that there are unique and undeniable merits to combining the Red Lake assets of Battle North and Evolution and this transaction reduces development and execution risk,” he said.
“Evolution is a highly regarded mining company with a demonstrated ability to successfully operate internationally. The Battle North team looks forward to working with Evolution to close the Transaction and smoothly transition operations to the new team.”