Overview
The Batangas Gold Exploration Project in the Philippines is a 1,160-hectare licence with a 25-year Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (‘MPSA’) granted. The Project has a current JORC compliant resource of 440,000 ounces, including a maiden ore reserve of 128,000 ounces (including silver credits) as well as multiple additional targets providing extensive resource upside. Exploration expenditure to the tune of c.$20m has already been invested and a Joint Venture development agreement signed with a local Philippine company with decades of experience in mining, to advance the Project.
Work is focused on completing Exploration and Environmental Work Programmes initially targeting the high-grade Lobo area, where the mineral resources are associated with a linear, steeply dipping, epithermal lode with high grade ‘shoots’ of mineralisation that replicate Medusa Mining’s projects. At Lobo there is excellent exploration potential across the licence with high-grade targets already identified and 14km of identified mineralised structures.
Rationale for Batangas
Batangas is a high-grade exploration project that has a quantified resource that the Company believes is both exploitable and highly extendable. The staged JV agreement is based on the JV partner achieving defined development goals in return for equity in the Project and provides Bluebird with a free carry on the development of Batangas, allowing it to focus its attention and capital on the advancement of its South Korean mines.
