Avocet Mining to ‘aggressively’ drill remaining Burkina Faso assets after selling Hounde gold licenses

Avocet Mining (LON:AVM) has agreed to sell its 100% interest in the Hounde group of gold mining licenses in Burkina Faso to Avion Gold Corp (TSX:AVR) for a 13% stake in the company worth £7 million.
Avocet will now continue its accelerated exploration programmes in northern Burkina Faso in H2 2010, focusing on its wholly owned Bélahouro group of licences that cover an area of 1,660 square kilometres surrounding the Inata gold mine.
“The disposal of our Hounde licences to Avion allows Avocet to focus on our aggressive drilling programme at Inata and on the Bélahouro group of licences.  We look forward to being a shareholder in Avion, which has an exciting growth profile in West Africa,” said interim chief axecutive of Avocet Mining Brett Richards.

Inata has gross measured and indicated resources of 25 Mt (million tonnes) grading 1.73 g/t (grammes per tonne) for a total 1.4 Moz (million ounces) of gold.