Eagle Eye Metals to focus on West African gold, allows Australian option to expire

Eagle Eye Metals (ASX: EYE) has elected not to exercise an option to acquire a 20% interest in the project plus 1 million gold ounce Aphrodite project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Eagle Eye has advised Aphrodite Gold (ASX: AQQ), which allows Aphrodite to maintain full ownership of the highly prospective Aphrodite project.

Consideration to exercise the option comprised a cash payment of $1.44 million plus reimbursement of 20% of the direct exploration and development costs incurred by Aphrodite on the project to date.

Eagle Eye though still has exposure to the upside of Aphrodite, with Eagle Eye holding 11.85 million shares, equivalent to 8.9%, and 5.925 million options in Aphrodite.

This decision allows Eagle Eye to focus on the company's promising West African gold projects, which were recently acquired.

Inaugural drilling has already kicked off at the Dankassa Gold Project in Mali, with the country having historically produced around 250 million gold ounces.

Exploration has started at the Kourouba prospect with 2500 metres of reverse circulation drilling targeting a coherent gold in soil geochemistry anomaly, which extends over more than 5000 metres of strike.

Gold is known to occur within the prospect, with historical results including; 10 metres at 5.75 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, and 20 metres at 2.17g/t gold.

Around 58 holes were drilled at the prospect before the Eagle Eye acquisition, with the area providing exploration potential as mineralisation remains open in all directions.

Dankassa is within 200 kilometres of the Morila 7 million ounce project and the Siguiri 5 million ounce project.

The company believes there is considerable potential to discover additional gold mineralisation with infill, extensional and deeper drilling.

Dankassa is located 110 kilometres south of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and is readily accessible by a sealed highway and gravel roads.

Adding to the infrastructure is that high voltage power passes within 5 kilometres of the project, and a town that services a hydro-electric power scheme 40 kilometres to the south.

Eagle Eye has some big supporters - with Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG) recently becoming a cornerstone investor after subscribing to $500,000 worth of shares at $0.09, providing a vote of confidence in the company.

Originally published at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/17558/eagle-eye-metals-to-focus-on-west-african-gold-allows-australian-option-to-expire-17558.html