Equitas Acquires Copper-Gold Project Containing Historical Past Producing Sunshine, Monitor, and Three Jays Mines
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Oct 16, 2013) - Equitas Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE:EQT)(FRANKFURT:T6U1) ("Equitas" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has executed an Option Agreement (the "Agreement") to earn a 100% undivided ownership interest in the Nahmint Property (the" Property") located along the western shoreline of the Alberni Inlet 25 km south of Port Alberni, BC. The Property is approximately 9,552 hectares consisting of 21 cell mineral claims and 15 underlying crown granted claims.
The Nahmint Property covers a circular basin approximately 5 km in diameter consisting of Triassic to Jurassic Quatsino limestones, Parson Bay sediments and Bonanza volcanics, overlying Triassic Karmutsen volcanics, and intruded by Jurassic Island intrusives. This favourable contact between the Karmutsen and Quatsino Formations is considered highly prospective for copper, gold and iron skarn mineralization, and hosts 16 BC MINFILE occurrences on or immediately adjacent to the Nahmint Property. These include five historic past producers, which together yielded 3,677 tonnes of direct shipping ore averaging 7.8% copper, 0.54 g/t gold and 33 g/t silver from 1898 to 1918. Three of these historic past producers included: 1) Three Jays produced 1,981 tonnes @ 7.52% copper, 38.0 g/t silver and 0.97 g/t gold from 1898 to 1902; 2) Monitor produced 1,288 tonnes @ 9.08% copper, 28.8 g/t silver and 0.05 g/t gold from 1900 to 1918; 3) Sunshine produced 5 tonnes @ 17.4% copper and 43.6 g/t silver in 1916. These past producers were discovered, developed and mined in an era pre-dating modern mineral deposit models and mining techniques. Recorded production occurred between 1900-1902 and 1916-1918. The aforementioned data is historical in nature and predates NI43-101 reporting standards but are being treated as being reliable. It is worthy to note that no exploration by diamond drilling has been documented on the Property.
The exploration target model for the Nahmint Property is the Grasberg/Ertsberg porphyry/skarn district in Indonesia, although porphyry copper style mineralization has yet to be discovered at Nahmint. Vancouver Island hosts many significant past producing porphyry and skarn deposits in a similar geological setting as Nahmint, including Island Copper which produced 363 million tonnes averaging 0.34% copper, 0.01% molybdenum, 0.10 g/t gold, 0.81 g/t silver, and rhenium; and Old Sport which produced 2.62 million tonnes averaging 1.57% copper, 0.30 g/t gold, 23.2 g/t silver and 19.3% iron.
Since 2006 the Nahmint Property has had numerous systematic field exploration programs including 70 stream moss mat samples, 512 grid-based soil samples, 178 rock samples and 1,079 km of aeromagnetic geophysical surveys. The airborne geophysical survey was flown by Precision Geophysics at an elevation of 50 meters above topography. An interpretative report identified 38 intrusive targets, 4 structural targets and 10 areas of skarn clusters. All field exploration programs have increased the technical merits of the property, culminating with the 2012 aeromagnetic survey, which identified 8 prospective new grid target areas.
Equitas will initially target the Three Jays North Grid area, adjacent to both the historic Three Jays past producer and recent soil grid polymetallic anomalies. The intrusive anomaly at the Three Jays is oriented in an East West direction and is 2500 meters long and 750 meters wide dipping to the south at 80 degrees and plunging to the west. A field program will consist of grid-based soil sampling, geological mapping and prospecting over the Three Jays target, supervised by Jacques Houle, P.Eng., who is also the qualified person as defined by NI43-101 for the Company and the Property and has approved the contents of this news release.
Under the terms of the Agreement, Equitas will earn 100% interest in the Property for $620,000.00 in cash, 5,000,000 common shares, and $1,300,000.00 in exploration expenditures over seven years plus 2% NSR, of which 1% can be purchased for $1 million. Annual payments for the first five years will be $50,000 in cash and $250,000 in exploration expenditures. Annual issuance of common shares will start with 250,000 common shares on December 31, 2014, and increase by 50,000 common shares for each of the following three years. Payment of $120,000 cash and 1,500,000 common shares are due upon completion of a pre-feasibility study report before December 31, 2019. Final payment of Payment of $250,000 cash and issuance of 2,000,000 shares are due upon completion of a positive Economic Feasibility Report before December 31, 2020. Equitas may, at it's sole option, fulfill its obligation by making payment in full at any time. Final approval for the Property agreement is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange").
About Equitas Resources Corp.
Equitas Resources Corp. is a mineral exploration company that specializes in acquiring, exploring and advancing mineral properties. Equitas has a portfolio of base metal and precious metal projects in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. For more information on the property portfolio and Equitas, please visit www.equitasresources.com.
EQUITAS RESOURCES CORP.
On behalf of the Board,
Jay Roberge, President/CEO/Director
Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this document include statements about the Property, the terms of the Option Agreement, as amended, and Equitas' ability to meet its obligations under the Option Agreement, as amended. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; environmental liability claims and insurance; reliance on key personnel; the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers, directors or promoters with certain other projects; the absence of dividends; competition; dilution; the volatility of our common share price and volume and the additional risks identified in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and Equitas undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) has reviewed or accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contact
Equitas Resources Corp.
Jay Roberge
President/CEO/Director
604.681.1568
604.681.8240
www.equitasresources.com