The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Millrock, Seven Devils provide properties, talent to explorer North of 60 Mining News – September 21, 2018
The main zone at Willoughby. Historic drilling at this Golden Triangle property cut 20.55 meters averaging 25 grams per metric ton gold and 184 g/t silver.
Janine Calder, Greg Beischer and Jeff Kyba at the Waterfall prospect on Todd Creek, a northwestern B.C. property Sojourn Exploration acquired from Millrock Resources.
With the completion of a C$2.8 million financing, along with the closing of property acquisition agreements with Millrock Resources Inc. and Seven Devils Exploration Ltd., Sojourn Exploration Inc. has all the pieces in place to be a significant new prospect generator in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
The three-way deal brings together three highly prospective copper-gold properties generated by Millrock, another four properties and the exploration talent of privately held Seven Devils under one roof, Sojourn Exploration.
"At Seven Devils we have assembled a top-notch team whose track record of discovery has resulted in exceptional returns for shareholders," said Seven Devils President Tyler Ruks, who now serves as CEO of Sojourn.
In addition to Ruks, the Seven Devil's team moving over to Sojourn management include Nigel Luckman, serving as COO, and former B.C. Geological Survey District Geologist Jeff Kyba as vice president of exploration.
"The group has a long and successful history as project generators, having recently explored with some of the top names in mining including Freeport McMoRan, Robert Friedland, ITOCHU and Antofagasta," said Ruks.
Sojourn's new board has four directors – Ruks; Millrock Resources President and CEO Greg Beischer; John Meekison, a chartered professional accountant career investment banker; and Joel Dumaresq, co-founder and a managing director of Matrix Partners Inc., a Canadian private-equity and merchant banking group.
Assembling properties
Sojourn and Millrock began working together in mid-2017. At the time, Millrock optioned two of its Golden Triangle properties – Willoughby and Oweegee Dome – to the new exploration company.
Willoughby, which lies 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of Stewart, has a long exploration history including two phases of drilling.
Highlights from drilling in 1989 and 1995 include 20.5 meters averaging 24.99 grams per metric ton gold and 184.22 g/t silver; and 2.9 meters of 383 g/t gold and 213.6 g/t silver.
Oweegee Dome, which lies 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Stewart, also has a long exploration history that includes airborne geophysics, ground sampling and drilling.
One hole drilled there in 2007 cut 138.7 meters averaging 0.189 g/t gold and 0.074 percent copper, including a 17.14 meters section that averaged 0.468 g/t gold and 0.11 percent copper.
In order to simplify the three-company deal, Sojourn opted to buy Willoughby, Oweegee Dome and Todd Creek, a third Golden Triangle property, from Millrock.
Situated about 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Stewart, Todd Creek is prospective for three types of deposits the Golden Triangle is known for – polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulfide, Eskay Creek-type VMS, and gold-copper porphyry.
Sojourn issued Millrock 7.82 million shares for the three properties. With the 1.8 million shares already held, Millrock now owns 9.62 million Sojourn shares.
Sojourn is also reimbursing Millrock C$250,000 for exploration it carried out on the B.C. properties in 2017.
Seven Devils contributed another four B.C. exploration properties– Oxide Peak, Eagle, Rip and Teeta Creek – to Sojourn in exchange for 9.62 million shares.
These properties provide Sojourn and its shareholders exposure to three of British Columbia's most productive belts for porphyry copper-gold exploration – Toodoggone District (Oxide Peak), northern Quesnel Trough (Eagle), and the Late Cretaceous Bulkley intrusions of the Skeena Arch (Rip) – as well as a newly discovered Miocene porphyry belt in Northern Vancouver Island (Teeta Creek).
"Sojourn, in working with Millrock, has assembled a large and prospective land position in the Golden Triangle, long recognized as one of North America's premier base and precious metals districts. This combined package, along with our team's unrivaled knowledge of Golden Triangle geology and exploration potential, provides us with a unique advantage on the road to discovery," said Ruks.
Raising seed money
The deal with Millrock and Seven Devils hinged on Sojourn's ability to raise at least C$2.5 million. On Sept. 14, Sojourn announced it had closed the requisite financing, raising C$2.8 million in two tranches.
To raise the funds, Sojourn issued 28 million units at C10 cents apiece. Each unit consists of one common share plus one warrant entitling the holder to acquire an additional common share at C15 cents for a period of three years.
Sojourn intends to use the net proceeds for early stage exploration of the Millrock and Seven Devils properties, business development to attract joint venture partners, general administrative purposes, and working capital.
Roughly C$600,000 will go toward exploration at Oweegee Dome; another C$400,000 will be used to explore the Teeta Creek and Eagle projects; and roughly C$500,000 has been earmarked for potential acquisition and exploration of additional copper, gold and silver prospects.
"We anticipate the newly constituted company will have great success following the project generator business model and make great discoveries that will, in turn, benefit Millrock shareholders," said Beischer.
As a result of the three-way deal, Millrock Resources and Seven Devils Exploration each own about 16.1 percent of the Golden Triangle focused project generator.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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