Funds ready for gold project in Batangas

A joint venture for the prospective Lobo gold project in Batangas has become operational, revving up activities to bring the planned mine nearer to production stage.

Red Mountain Mining Ltd. said its partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures Ltd. has completed payments to form the $6.8-million (about P317 million) joint venture (JV), following the latter’s recent listing at the London Stock Exchange.

“Now that the Batangas JV is operational and funded, we can bring together all the work over the past 12 to 18 months to fast track completion of the development studies and permitting,” Red Mountain managing director Jon Dugdale said in a statement. “This JV brings together two highly experienced board and executive teams, with the mining and development experience to develop this exciting gold project.”

The joint venture intends to complete a pre-feasibility study of the prospect in Lobo town and secure a permit for a drilling program and test key resource or reserve targets at Lobo.

Beyond that, the joint venture wants to move forward to a definitive feasibility study (DFS) and finalize other permits like the Environmental Impact Statement, which is a requirement for the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).

The project also needs to secure endorsements needed to allow the Declaration of Mining Project Feasibility (DMF) to be elevated to the Mines and Geosciences Bureau for final technical assessment and recommendation for approval.

Last November, Red Mountain said samples from the so-called South West Breccia (SWB) Main Lode showed as much as 29.3 grams of gold per ton of material from just a meter under the surface.