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  • Golden Deeps (GED) has acquired Extract Minerals — and its Lachlan Fold Belt licences — and finalised the terms for a share placement to fund exploration and development at the new prospects
  • The two projects cover over 240 square kilometres of the highly prospective and productive area, which contains several major gold, copper-gold and silver deposits
  • Under the terms of the acquisition, Golden Deeps paid $30,000 cash and issued 2.5 million shares to the vendors, plus one free option per share
  • Golden Deeps also successfully placed over 67 million shares, as well as options, to raise around $540,000 to further explore and develop the new prospects
  • All options issued under the acquisition and placement require shareholder approval
  • Golden Deeps has fallen to its placement price today, with a 27.3 per cent drop leaving shares priced at 0.8 cents each at Wednesday’s close

Golden Deeps (GED) has acquired Extract Minerals — and its Lachlan Fold Belt licences — and finalised the terms for a share placement to fund exploration and development at the new prospects.

Lachlan Fold Belt

The Lachlan Fold Belt is a highly prospective and productive area containing several major gold, copper-gold and silver deposits, including Newcrest’s Cadia-Ridgeway Mine, and Evolution’s Lake Cowal Mine.

The region is synonymous with porphyry-style mineralisation, orogenic gold deposits, and silver-lead skarn deposits.

Golden Deeps’ acquisition of Extract Minerals brings with it the potential to exploit over 240 square kilometres of the Lachlan Fold Belt.

Tuckers Hill project

The Tuckers Hill project still needs approval for its exploration licence application.

The 140-square kilometre area holds a number of promising prospects, largely consisting of gold-bearing quartz veins of a similar lithographical and structural nature to those found in Victoria’s gold rush regions around Bendigo and Ballarat.

Historical shallow workings at Tuckers Hill have been rock chip sampled by previous explorers and have returned some high-grade results up to 705 grams per tonne (g/t) gold with an average grade of 68.45g/t.

This is indicative of the nuggety, gold-rush style quartz mineralisation suspected to reside in the veins of Tuckers Hill.

At least two long, thin veins have already been identified and sampled, with Golden Deeps suspecting they form part of a larger, thicker quartz reef system that will be drill-tested at the fold hinge of the tucker Hill anticline.

Havilah project

Havilah covers 102 square kilometres and comes with a granted exploration licence.

The project adjoins the Bowdens silver project to the east – the largest undeveloped silver deposit in Australia – and sits amid other areas which are highly prospective for gold-copper porphyry, as well as molybdenum and tungsten.

Several prospects across Havilah have shown potential with indications of anomalous copper and gold.

The differing geological zones across the project require further exploration to map suspected orogenic gold, silver-lead skarn and gold-copper porphyry mineralisation.

Acquisition terms

If there are any major finds across Havilah or Tuckers Hill, it would seem Golden Deeps has acquired the prospects for a pretty fair price.

Under the terms of the acquisition, Golden Deeps paid the vendors a cash consideration of just $30,000.

The company also issued 2.5 million shares, along with a further 2.5 million options exercisable at 1.5 cents each by June 30 2021.

The options issue is still pending shareholder approval.

Given Golden Deeps’ share price has been dwelling under 1 cent since early March, the acquisition of the two large, prospective areas for a combined total of under $55,000 equivalent seems like a bargain.

Successful placement

Golden Deeps has already received the cash for its successful placement of 67,652,140 shares to sophisticated and professional investors at 0.8 cents per share.

The placement raised $541,217 before costs.

The money will be used for exploration and project development, and for working capital and other capital requirements.

Each share issued will also come with one free attaching option under the same terms as the acquisition options listed above, and are also pending shareholder approval.

The company has also agreed to issue a further 30 million options on the same terms to the facilitators of the Extract Minerals acquisition, also pending shareholder approval.

The approvals are set for a vote at a General Meeting in late June.

Golden Deeps has fallen to its placement price today, with a 27.3 per cent drop leaving shares priced at 0.8 cents each at Wednesday’s close.

GED by the numbers
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