Stratabound Minerals Announces Option of Yukon Gold Project with New Discovery
CALGARY, Alberta, Oct.23, 2017(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Stratabound Minerals Corp. (TSXV:SB) ("Stratabound" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to acquire an option on the Golden Culvert Gold Project located in the Upper Hyland Valley in the southeastern Yukon Territory approximately 20 kilometres northeast of and parallel to Golden Predator Mining Corp.'s 3 Aces property. The LOI provides for the transfer of the underlying option by the current optionee, South Shore Partnership Inc. ("South Shore") to the Company. Stratabound's Director and VP Exploration Michael Page, FAusIMM, has completed a due diligence site inspection of the property.
Golden Culvert Property
The Golden Culvert Property is located in the Little Hyland Valley District of the Southeastern Yukon Territory, approximately 205 kilometres north of the town of Watson Lake. The property lies parallel to and about 20 km northeast of the 3 Aces Project of Golden Predator Mining Corp.Significant gold mineralization up to 22.8 gpt Au from a chip sample on the exposed Main Culvert quartz vein has been reported on filed assessment reports. Gold occurrences in the upper Hyland River valley form a 50-km-long belt that is considered to be the easternmost portion of the Tombstone Gold Belt (Hart and Lewis, 2008). The entire 800 kilometre long Tombstone Belt of gold deposits and occurrences lies within the greater Tintina Gold Belt that includes Fort Knox, Pogo, Brewery Creek and Dublin Gulch. Golden Predator's 3 Aces project has attracted investors such as Sprott, McEwen Mining and PowerOne Capital Markets. Other developing projects in the immediate district receiving significant recent investment include the Rackla Project of ATAC Resources, in which Barrick has a significant interest, and the Plateau Project of Goldstrike Resources, in which Newmont has invested.
Golden Culvert covers 83.8 square kilometres across a 24 kilometre strike. The property is a relatively new discovery, first staked in 2005. Work filed in Yukon mineral claims assessment reports has outlined a northerly trending, 3 kilometre by 250 metre anomaly of +30 ppb Au up to 791 ppb Au gold-in-soils that remains open at both ends. The gold-in-soils anomaly is sometimes coincident with silver and copper alteration patterns. The soils anomaly is centred around partially exposed, near vertically dipping sub-parallel quartz shear veins, with adjacent wallrock alteration, containing gold and sulphide mineralization. The assessment filings report chip sample assays of the veins of 22.8 gpt Au (#G071512), 17.3 gpt Au (#C-OC2), 11.95 gpt Au (#RS68) and 9.48 gpt Au (#C-RF4). Chip sample RS57 sampled across 2.4 metres of wall rock assayed 1.28 gpt Au not including quartz veins. The veins and coincident soils anomalies strike parallel with the regional March Fault approximately 3 km to the west.The main shear veins noted above are associated with sub-perpendicular flat, sheeted extension veinlets that strike parallel to the main shear veins. A third set of veins that strike perpendicular to the main shear veins was recently observed by Stratabound personnel during the recent due diligence site visit. The three vein sets appear to characterize a quartz vein stockwork zone. Furthermore, the stockwork is hosted within pervasive, highly silicified phyllites with disseminated sulphide mineralization in a zone at least 30 metres wide where exposed. Samples taken of the mineralized host rock are pending along with other confirmation samples.
New Discovery - Green Dragon
A new 2-3 metre wide copper mineralized quartz vein, 1.4 kilometres south along strike of the original Culvert Main Vein showing was discovered in September, 2017. The new discovery is dubbed the "Green Dragon" due to patches of green malachite copper oxide mineralization. The vein was located as a result of prospecting along the southern open soils anomaly extension. Stratabound's due diligence site visit confirmed the presence and location of the Green Dragon occurrence (assays pending).
Future Plans
The majority of the soil anomaly is covered with talus scree and even though significant discoveries have been made to date there is much more work required to define the full potential of the Golden Culvert Property. Upon closing of the option acquisition, the Company will complete an NI 43-101 report that is already underway. The Company plans in the coming field season to fill in the gaps in the soils survey, complete geological mapping and structural studies, perform trenching and enhance road access in preparation for an initial drill campaign.
Permitting and Infrastructure
The Central Culvert group of claims has a 10-year Class III Land Use Approval from the Yukon Energy, Mines and Resources to November 16, 2026 that allows for a camp, access roads, trenching, diamond drilling and bulk sampling. The all-seasons Nahanni Range Road crosses directly through the middle of the claim group. Over $360 million in combined federal and territorial funding was announced on September 2, 2017 to improve road access including the Nahanni Range Road that crosses through both the Golden Culvert and 3 Aces projects.
LOI and Option Terms
The terms of the LOI provide for the payment to South Shore of $100,000 at closing and an additional $100,000 four months after closing upon completion by Stratabound of a $1,000,000 private placement, plus the issuance to South Shore of 12,000,000 common shares of Stratabound at closing. Further issuances of 5,000,000 common shares upon each of the first and second anniversaries of the closing are also required. Both the LOI with South Shore and the Option with the current owners of the claims are for acquisition of a 100% interest in the properties. The Option, which is in two separate agreements, can be exercised upon completion of payments of $1,720,000 ($125,000 of which was paid by South Shore) and work commitments totaling $700,000 over a five-year period. Stratabound will have the right to make one-half of the payments in shares. The properties are subject to an aggregate net smelter returns (NSR) royalty of 2.5%, payable to South Shore and the current owners of the claims. The Company is finishing due diligence and plans to close the option acquisition in late November after all approvals are obtained.
Appointment of President, CEO and Director
Mr. R. Kim Tyler, P.Geo., has been appointed President, CEO and a Director of the Company.Mr. Tyler is a mining and exploration professional with over 40 years of progressive management and executive experience in gold, base metals and industrial minerals with companies including Vale, Rio Tinto, Royal Oak Mines and Cominco Ltd. Mr. Tyler brings strong technical expertise that, besides mineral exploration, includes mine operations management experience in both open pit and underground mining operations. Since 2007 Mr. Tyler has served as President and Director of Canadian Arrow Mines Limited, a junior exploration and development company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange.During his tenure leading the executive team through exploration to pre-development phases, Mr. Tyler has managed successful financings, property acquisitions, NI 43-101 Resource and PEA studies, and various mining agreements including First Nations, custom milling and concentrate off-take agreements.Under his leadership the Company was awarded "Developer of the Year" in 2008 by the Northwestern Ontario Prospectors and Developers Association and received a public award of recognition for best business practices by the Grand Chief of the First Nations within Treaty #3. Mr. Tyler has also held positions as Manager of Projects Evaluation North America for a TSX listed mid-tier gold producer as well as Operations Manager for two other TSX-listed junior gold development companies.
Mr. Tyler is a Professional Geoscientist registered in both British Columbia and Ontario. He has worked within both junior and major mining and exploration environments. As such he has had exposure to innovation and best industry practices from a number of corporate cultures.
As an incentive for Mr. Tyler to join the Company, the Board of Directors of the Company has granted Mr. Tyler 3,000,000 stock options. The stock options are exercisable into common shares of Stratabound at an exercise price of C$0.05 per share for a period of five years.Stratabound's common shares closed at C$0.045 on the TSX Venture Exchange on October 13, 2017. In addition, eight of Stratabound's largest shareholders, including the management team, have granted Mr. Tyler options to acquire a total of 7,000,000 common shares at an exercise price of $0.005 per share for a like period of five years.
With the Company's change in focus to exploration, and to accommodate the addition of Mr. Tyler to the Stratabound executive team, current President and CEO Terrence Byberg has accepted the position of Executive Vice President. He remains a director of the Company. Dr. Peter Calder has retired from the Stratabound board of directors, and the Company wishes to thank him for his service.
Completion of Private Placement
The Company announces also that it has completed the private placement announced on October 19, 2017 of 1,500,000 units (the "Units") of the Company, at a price of $0.05 per Unit, for gross proceeds of $75,000. Each Unit consisted of one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant is exercisable for one common share at $0.075 for 24 months from the date of issue. Securities issued under the private placement are subject to a four-month hold period. The subscriber of this private placement was Bellport Resources Ltd. which is controlled by the Company's largest shareholder, William Bell. The Company is deeply appreciative of the ongoing support of Mr. Bell.
Former President and CEO Terry Byberg stated, "I welcome Kim to Stratabound. He has brought the Company opportunities that offer the Company's shareholders immediate benefits and significant long term potential. His extensive exploration experience will bode well for the Company and shareholders with this directional change from near-term operator to exploration."
Chairman of the Board of Directors Margaret Kent commented, "I am very pleased to welcome Kim Tyler in joining the Stratabound team as we have worked together in the past on other successful exploration and development projects including the Pamour Superpit in Timmins, Ontario."
Incoming President and CEO Kim Tyler commented, "I very much look forward to joining the Stratabound team and building shareholder value through developing this excellent project as well as other excellent opportunities we are contemplating. The Golden Culvert Project is an exceptional exploration target for us, and I am confident that the junior markets will see the similarities between Golden Culvert and the nearby 3 Aces property, which has become Golden Predator's keystone asset. I will be sharing the Golden Culvert information with the geological community in Canada over the next several weeks."
Michael Page, FAusIMM, Stratabound Vice President Exploration and Qualified Person under NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information presented in this press release.
For further information contact:
R. Kim Tyler, President and CEO
416-915-4157
info@stratabound.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
WARNING: the Company relies upon litigation protection for "forward looking" statements. The information in this release may contain forward-looking information under applicable securities laws. This forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking information. Factors that may cause actual results to vary materially include, but are not limited to, inaccurate assumptions concerning the exploration for and development of mineral deposits, currency fluctuations, unanticipated operational or technical difficulties, changes in laws or regulations, failure to obtain regulatory or shareholder approval, the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits, changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets and the inability to raise additional financing. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information. The Company does not assume the obligation to revise or update this forward-looking information after the date of this release or to revise such information to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.