Abacus Mining acquiring Willow property from Almadex Minerals, Nevada

Abacus Mining & Exploration Corp. [TSXV-AME] has signed an agreement with Almadex Minerals Ltd. [TSXV-DEX] and its wholly owned Nevada subsidiary, Almadex America Inc., to acquire a 100% interest in the Willow porphyry copper property located in Yerington, Nevada, and data associated with the Willow property.

Under the terms of the agreement, which are subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, Abacus will issue common shares of Abacus to Almadex, as to 7.5 million shares in the capital of the company (the initial shares) on closing of the transaction, expected to be on or about June 30, 2024; and on July 31, 2025 (the top-up date), such number of shares owned by Almadex immediately following the completion of the transaction on the closing date, then divided by the number of shares outstanding on the top-up date, equals 0.08, rounded down to the nearest whole share.

Title to the claims comprising the Willow Property will be transferred to Abacus on issuance of the Initial Shares, and Abacus will, as soon as reasonably practicable following the closing date and in any event no later than December 31, 2025, complete the drilling of a minimum 600 metre exploratory hole on the Willow Property within an area agreed upon with Almadex.

The Willow Property is subject to a 2% NSR from future production of minerals from the Willow Property.

“An option agreement on Willow was signed in early 2017 between Abacus and Almadex, allowing Abacus to earn an aggregate 75% interest in Willow by meeting certain spending thresholds and by issuing shares,” commented Paul G. Anderson, President and CEO of Abacus. “This Agreement removes the spending commitments, and it consolidates ownership of a very prospective porphyry copper property which remains poorly drill tested.”

Abacus completed geological, geochemical and geophysical work on Willow beginning in 2017, identifying an extensive zone of intense silicic and advanced argillic alteration, marked by coincident geological, geochemical and geophysical signatures typical of a porphyry Cu-Mo deposit.

Abacus drilled two diamond drill holes in 2018, which intersected the Luhr Hill granite, which is the host rock of the four known porphyry copper-molybdenum (Cu-Mo) deposits in the Yerington camp. The holes hit short intervals of copper in the 0.1 to 0.2% range with elevated Mo.

In 2021, three additional core holes intersected broader intervals of the Luhr Hill granite with significant composited intervals of low-grade copper and molybdenum mineralization. The results indicate close proximity to a porphyry copper centre and clearly indicate that further drilling is warranted.

The company’s target is essentially identical to the two largest porphyry deposits in the Yerington camp, namely the past-producing Yerington mine and the undeveloped Ann Mason deposit.

Of the known porphyries in the camp, the Ann Mason deposit lies adjacent and east of Willow and is held by HudBay Minerals. In 2021, Hudbay announced an updated PEA on Ann Mason with a revised M&I resource of 2.2 billion tonnes at 0.34% Cu.

Lion Copper and Gold control the Yerington, Bear and MacArthur porphyries adjacent and east of Ann Mason. Anaconda mined the Yerington porphyry between 1952 until 1978, producing 1.6 billion pounds of copper. MacArthur (M&I of 159MT at 0.212% Cu) has seen some past production and is currently undergoing a Prefeasibility Study. In March of 2022, Lion announced that Rio Tinto had taken an option on the company’s Yerington assets, and it announced the results of a new In addition, the company has a lease on the Nev-Lorraine claims contiguous to Willow, giving it the right to explore and to elect to purchase these claims outright over a ten-year period.

Abacus is a mineral exploration and mine development company currently focused on copper and gold in B.C. and Nevada. The Company’s main asset is a 20% ownership interest, together with KGHM Polska Miedz S.A. (80%), in the proposed copper-gold Ajax Mine located southwest of Kamloops, B.C., which has undergone a joint provincial and federal environmental assessment process.

On December 14, 2017, a decision was made by the B.C. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources to decline to issue an environmental assessment certificate for the Project. KGHM have recently reopened an office in Kamloops, B.C. to facilitate First Nation, community and governmental engagement in order to advance the project towards a potential resubmission of the environmental application.