NQ Minerals and Evolution Mining sign Australian agreement

NQ Minerals' fully owned subsidiary, Circle Resources, has signed an agreement with ASX-listed gold miner Evolution Mining in Australia.

Both parties will make a detailed evaluation about the potential processing of the lead and silver rich stockpiles at the Sunbeam Project, located on NQ’s Ukalunda tenement in North Queensland.

Evolution owns the Mt Carlton gold and silver mining operation located about 150kms south of Townsville in North Queensland and its plant is located about 80kms from the Sunbeam Project.  

The project includes the historic Sunbeam Mine, which produced around 600,000 ounces of silver with bonanza grades of up to 37,000 grams per tonne. 

Surface stockpiles containing approximately 180,000 tonnes of material remain from this historic mining activity, of which an estimated 48,000 tonnes are expected to contain high grades of contained silver based on prior sampling. 

NQ Minerals' other Queensland project includes Square Post, while Evolution Mining has three projects, at Mt Carlton (where total FY20 gold production was 58,962 ounces, pictured), Mt Rawdon and Ernest Henry.

The new agreement allows Evolution to fund an initial comprehensive sampling programme and conduct metallurgical and process testing of the high grade component of the Sunbeam Project stockpiles. 

It also includes options granted to Evolution for the processing of all, or some, of these stockpiles into saleable concentrates at Mt Carlton, or via other agreed processing route, on a cost and revenue sharing basis with Circle. 

David Lenigas, NQ Minerals Chairman, said the agreement marks an important step forward in moving forward NQ’s efforts to commercialise its North Queensland mining properties. "Not only does this mean we can look to commercialise these stockpiles against a robust silver market environment, but it also opens the path to further potential exploration at Sunbeam," he said.

London listed NQ Minerals recently raised £301,425.95 (gross) at 7p per share from an institutional investor and a group of private investors for general working capital purposes. The company will issue 4,279,048 new ordinary shares under this equity issue. 

The Tasmanian Government formally transferred the Mining Lease ML 1767 P/M, that covers the Beaconsfield Gold Mine, to NQ’s 100% subsidiary Pieman Resources, last July, following its A$2million acquisition a year ago.

The Beaconsfield Gold Mine has historic recorded production of c.1.8 million ounces of gold averaging c.15 grams per tonne. "The company plans to re-open the mine as soon as practicably possible," it states.