Noble Mineral Exploration Inc. (TSX-V:NOB, FRANKFURT: NB7, OTCQB:NLPXF) announced today that it has entered into a binding Letter of Intent to acquire the Lucas Gold Project from Canada Nickel Company Inc. ("CNC"). The transaction involves Noble issuing 5,000,000 units to CNC, with each unit valued at $0.06 and consisting of one common share and one-half non-transferable common share purchase warrant exercisable at $0.15 per share for two years.
Under the agreement, CNC will retain a "Back-in Right" allowing it to purchase a 25% interest in the property at any time after the Trigger Date. The Trigger Date is defined as the earlier of 36 months from closing, the date when at least $5 million of exploration expenditures have been incurred on the property, or the date of a binding sale agreement or change of control of Noble. CNC would then pay Noble an amount equal to four times the exploration expenditures incurred up to that point.
Vance White, President and CEO of Noble, stated: "We are very pleased to be proceeding with the repurchase of an excellent gold prospect on which we know from past work carried out by Noble of an existing gold zone but also a number of untested parallel zones." The Lucas Gold Project is drill-ready and located approximately 30 km north of Timmins, Ontario, a region renowned for over 75 million ounces of gold production. It is also 20 km northeast of the Kidd Creek Mine, which has produced over 150 million tonnes of ore in 58 years, and 20 km east of the Crawford Nickel Resource being developed by CNC.
Infrastructure in the area is robust, with access via paved Highway 655, abundant power and water, and a Memorandum of Understanding with local First Nations. In 2018, Noble completed 15 diamond drill holes totaling 3,184 meters, covering approximately 650 meters of the 1,700-meter gold mineralized structure identified from airborne electromagnetic and magnetic surveys. The company located 37 historical drill-hole collars and twinned three of them. No further work has been done since 2018.
The Lucas Gold Project contains six discrete IP anomalous trends requiring follow-up exploration, with only one trend tested by drilling to date. Gold mineralization is interpreted as structurally controlled lenses within a pyrite- and gold-mineralized tuffaceous unit. Future work will include drilling on the initial IP anomaly to further define the gold mineralization and testing the other five undrilled IP anomalies for similar gold mineralization.
Stephen J. Balch, P.Geo. (ON), VP Exploration of CNC, and Wayne Holmstead, P.Geo. (ON), a qualified person for Noble, have reviewed and approved the technical information in this release. The transaction remains subject to negotiation of a definitive agreement and approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.
Noble Mineral Exploration Inc. is a Canadian junior exploration company with holdings in Canada Nickel Company Inc., Homeland Nickel Inc., East Timmins Nickel Inc. (20%), and the Holdsworth gold exploration property in Wawa, Ontario. The company holds mineral rights to approximately 70,000 hectares in Northern Ontario and 25,000 hectares in Quebec, including the ~18,000-hectare Project 81 in Timmins-Cochrane, which hosts diversified drill-ready gold, nickel-cobalt, and base metal targets. Additional properties include the Nagagami Carbonatite Complex, Boulder Project, Buckingham Graphite, Havre St Pierre Nickel-Copper-PGM, and several rare earth element properties in Quebec and Newfoundland. More information is available at https://www.noblemineralexploration.com.
