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Rio Tinto and now Newcrest — has any Paterson province explorer besides Antipa (ASX:AZY) managed to lock in deals of this magnitude?
Antipa is a $22m market cap junior now backed by two of the world’s biggest mining companies.
It has been building a +5000sqkm land package in the red-hot Paterson province of WA since 2011, well before the Winu and Havieron discoveries thrust it into public consciousness.
This ‘pre-emptive strike’ is paying huge dividends.
In 2015, Antipa signed a mammoth deal with major miner and subsequent Winu-finder Rio (ASX:RIO) over the Citadel project.
The deal, under which Rio can spend $60m for a 75 per cent stake in the project, is still one of the industry’s biggest between major miner and junior explorer.
In early 2020 Citadel — about 5km from Winu — had a respectable 1.6-million-ounce gold/127,000-tonne copper resource and exploration is ongoing. Rio funds all of it.
Today Antipa signed another big $60m farm-in deal with gold miner Newcrest (ASX:NCM), part owner of the nearby Havieron discovery:
This deal covers a 2,180sqkm chunk of Antipa’s remaining ground in the Paterson, now known as the Wilki project.
For the first two years Newcrest will shell out a minimum $6m on Wilki exploration to be managed by Antipa.
After that, the miner can increase its stake to 55 per cent and 75 per cent by spending $10m and $44m, respectively. That’s a total spend of $60m over the next eight years.
Newcrest will also take a 9.9 per cent stake in Antipa by subscribing for $3.9m in shares at 1.7c per share.
That’s a 54 per cent premium to the last closing price of 1.1c, which has helped launch the stock in morning trade.
The company was approached for extra comment.