Marmota’s Jumbuck gold acquisition gets Ministerial approval

Marmota will more than double its footprint over the prospective Gawler Craton gold tenure after securing ministerial consent for its acquisition of the Jumbuck gold project.

Taking its acreage in the South Australian region up from 5,000sqkm to 12,000sqkm is particularly noteworthy as the company has already proven its exploration chops at the Aurora Tank gold discovery, near the 1million ounce Challenger gold mine.

Marmota (ASX:MEU), which recently completed a diamond drill program at Aurora Tank where visible gold was sighted during preliminary inspections, has delivered some exquisite results from the project including its best ever 1m intersection of 165 grams per tonne (g/t) gold in February this year just 57m from surface.

Drilling of the high-grade NW flank that was identified by following up on elevated gold in tree sampling has also defined a strike of about 285m that remains open to the northeast.

The company appears to be looking to replicate these successes at Jumbuck as it is located immediately adjacent to its existing ground and surrounds Barton Gold’s (ASX:BGD) Challenger mine that produced about 1.2 million ounces of high-grade gold from 2002 to 2018.

Marmota has now agreed to immediately release $200,000 of funds already held in trust to vendor Tyranna Resources (ASX:TYX) with the remaining $2.2m (also held in trust) to be released upon completion of the purchase.

Additionally, $500,000 worth of Marmota shares will be issued to Tyranna on completion.

“We are very pleased that this critical hurdle has been achieved and look forward to the imminent settlement of the transaction,” chairman Dr Colin Rose said.

Jumbuck acquisition

The company’s $3m acquisition of Jumbuck is the culmination of a three-way tussle that harkens back to Tyranna agreeing to sell the asset to Syngas for a paltry $950,000 in a related party transaction in October 2019.

This was subsequently pipped by Alliance Resources (ASX:AGS), which offered $2.025m plus the opportunity to participate in a share issue in Alliance valued at $1m in July last year, forcing Syngas to increase its offer to $2.25m.

Marmota subsequently trumped the other two contenders with a $2.6m offer at the end of July, though the company did not receive any reply for some time, which led Rose to tell Stockhead in August 2020 that he was confused as to why Tyranna was pursuing “manifestly inferior” offers.

This led the company to dangle its $3m cash and share offer in November 2020, which was accepted by Tyranna, after a vote by Tyranna shareholders to decline the Syngas offer,

This article was developed in collaboration with Marmota, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.