Invictus acquires option to purchase gold project in Turkey

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THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Invictus Gold has announced that the company has acquired an option to purchase 100 per cent of the Himmetdede South project located 50 kilometres north of the city of Kayseri in the emerging mineral province of Central Anatolia, Turkey.

The project is south west of, and adjacent to, the Himmetdede gold deposit owned by major Turkish company Koza Gold.

Location of the Himmetdede South Project. Source: Company Announcement

Invictus has commenced ground exploration on the project: an extensive soil geochemistry survey over the entire licence of 7.12 square kilometres is in progress.

According to its ASX release, Invictus has made the decision to expand its operations into Turkey because most of the country lies within the Tethyan Metallogenic Belt that is host to many multi-million ounce gold and multi-million pound copper deposits.

Invictus also considers Turkey to be a promising prospect due to it being very poorly explored despite a long history of mining, and having a positive fiscal and legislative regime for mining.

The Himmetdede gold deposit is owned by Koza Gold, a company listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange which produces about 400,000 ounces of gold per year.

The deposit has a measured, indicated and inferred resource base of 31 million tonnes at 0.7 grams per tonne gold for a contained 800,000 ounces of gold and is undergoing feasibility studies as an open pit and heap leach operation.

Drilling is on-going at the deposit and is within 1,000 m of the licence boundary of Invictus Gold’s Himmetdede South Project.

The principal terms of the option to purchase agreement are:

1. A non-refundable payment of $100,000 on transfer of the licence to Invictus’ Turkish subsidiary (completed);
2. Invictus can withdraw at any time after the first payment and transfer the licence back to the owner;

3. Further payments over five years will secure 100 per cent ownership of the licence for Invictus.

When production starts, a 2.5 per cent Net Smelter Royalty is payable to the owner.