St. Elias Mines postpones spin off of BC properties until the fall

St. Elias Mines (CVE:SLI) announced Tuesday that it has postponed the completion of the spin-off transaction of its BC properties into Havilah Mines Ltd, until the fall.
The company’s spin-out of its property assets in British Columbia was postponed due to market conditions, it said. The concurrent financing and listing of Havilah on the TSX Venture Exchange will also be postponed.
The company expects to finalize the spin-off, financing and listing of Havilah in the fall.
The transaction involves restructuring St. Elias’ business and assets in order to separate its property interests in Peru from its property interests in British Columbia.
Once closed, Havilah will have a wholly-owned interest in St. Elias’ mineral properties in British Columbia and St. Elias will retain 100 per cent of its interest in its Peruvian gold properties.
St. Elias focuses on the acquisition and development of natural resource properties, with particular attention paid to gold mining exploration in Peru.
St. Elias recently saw its stock increase after reporting that its phase 1 exploration program will start at its Peruvian Cueva Blanca gold property.
Cueva Blanca covers about 5,000-hectares and is located in the Lambayeque department in northwest Peru, within the Peru Miocene metallogenic belt.
The diamond drill program, which has a $2.5 million budget, will drill about 10,000 metres and start after the required permits are obtained by St. Elias and Intigold (CVE:IGD).
Initial drill targets include the Cruz vein, the Cruz breccias bodies and a stratiform silicified zone that has anomalous bismuth-mercury geochemistry. St. Elias and Intigold have initiated field studies in the Cueva Blanca area in preparation for diamond drilling.
The main drill target will be the gold-silver bearing Cruz vein system. St. Elias said the target areas are along strike and down dip from the previously drilled area of the vein.
The Cueva Blanca property is bordered to the south and southeast by mineral concessions of Vale S.A., and Barrick Gold (TSE:ABX) holds extensive mineral concessions four kilometres to the north.
Intigold acquired an option to earn a 60 percent stake in the property, subject to 1.5 percent net smelter return royalty.
Intigold will make cash payments of $200,000 to St. Elias over two years, and issue one million shares, as well as incur $1.5 million in exploration costs over a three-year period.
Intigold can also purchase one-half of the net smelter royalty from St. Elias for $1.5 million and cut the royalty down to 0.75 per cent.
Shares of St. Elias traded at 23 cents Tuesday afternoon.