Rimfire lands $7.5m earn-in to accelerate Avondale exploration

Rimfire is accelerating exploration of its Avondale cobalt-PGE-gold project in NSW’s highly prospective Lachlan Fold Belt after securing an earn-in partner.

Avondale covers a 546sqkm area peripheral to the existing Fifield (Sorpresa) earn-in area that has a maiden JORC resource of 6.4 million tons grading 0.61 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 38g/t silver.

Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX:RIM) noted that Golden Plains Resources has committed to paying $1m to fund exploration activities during the first year of the agreement with options to spend a further $6.5m over another three years to earn a 75% stake in Avondale.

During this earn-in period, Rimfire will retain responsibility and control for the design and execution of field work programs during the earn-in period.

Importantly, the earn-in is the second such agreement that the company has reached with Golden Plains Resources – the other being the $4.5m earn-in for Fifield. This new agreement highlights Rimfire’s ability to commercialise project ground and extract economic outcomes for shareholders. Across these two agreements, Rimfire is now fully carried for $12m of exploration expenditure.

That Rimfire will essentially serve as the operator during the earn-in periods for both projects is testament to its exploration credentials.

“The company is very pleased that GPR has chosen to expand their level of commitment and confidence in the ground held by Rimfire to deliver further discoveries,” managing director Craig Riley said.

Post this earn-in agreement, Rimfire will retain management control over Fifield and Avondale along with its 100% owned The Valley and Cowal projects.

Forward program

The company will now start planning for programs initially focused on the cobalt and platinum group elements (PGE) potential of previously identified prospects at Avondale.

It also plans to kick off the next phase of drilling at the Transit prospect in Fifield this month after recent drilling returned results such as 55m grading 0.94g/t gold.

Results are also pending from drilling at The Valley to test near-surface induced polarisation targets and interpreted Ordovician basement that hosts regional major discoveries such as Northparkes, Cadia and Cowal.

This article was developed in collaboration with Fresh Equities, 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.