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Candelaria Mining announced on Monday that it had sealed an agreement to buy Empire Metals’ share in the Bolnisi copper/gold project in Georgia, for C$7-million.
The Bolnisi project is situated within a highly underexplored part of the prolific Tethyan Belt, a well-known geological belt and host to many high-grade gold, copper and polymetallic deposits and producing mines, the company said in a press release.
The project concession covers an area of over 860 sq km with a variety of gold-copper and gold-polymetallic exploration prospects and resource development projects including the resource PEA stage Kvemo Bolnisi East (“KBE”) gold-copper project that is located 7 km from the Madneuli gold-copper mine.
Empire Metals executives Mike Struthers and Neil O’Brien would join Candelaria as CEO and chairperson, respectively, while remaining non-executive directors of the London-listed company.
“Candelaria is a growth story with some excellent gold assets in Mexico, including the Pinos gold project which is about to start construction and is scheduled to commence production in 12 to 14 months,” Struthers said in a media release.
“It has a strong technical and operations team on the ground in Mexico. Empire shareholders will benefit from the future production and growth of Candelaria, whilst retaining exposure to the assets in Georgia on which we will continue with our efforts to unlock value,” Struthers added.
The appointments are subject to the closing of the transaction planned for December 7, 2020.
