2 months ago
15
Mining venture Geophysx Jamaica Ltd expects to start drilling in 2025 as it advances its partnership with Canada-based Barrick Gold.
“We will be drilling targets in 2025,” said Geophysx founder and Managing Director Robert ‘Bobby’ Stewart in a Financial Gleaner interview on Tuesday. “We are mapping eight project areas.”
From those areas, drills will be allocated to some of them. The next six months the partners will separate the “smoke from the fire” to identify the top drill sites.
“It will be multiple drills,” he said, about the hunt for gold and copper in commercial quantities.
Geophysx Jamaica has collected over 30,000 soil samples, or assays, across the island. It leverages this database with Barrick’s technical expertise and its financial backing. The partners will search for ‘tier-one assets’ across the island to justify drilling. A tier-one asset supports more than 10 years of gold mining, with annual production at 500,000 ounces, and 20 years of copper mining, with annual production of 200 kilotonnes.
“Over the next six months we will assess the data to see the best site to drill-test,” said Stewart, who is a son of the late business mogul Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, founder of the hotel chain Sandals Resorts International and the ATL Group. “So, we are developing the targets to hit.”
The management discussion and analysis (MD&A) of Barrick’s September quarterly report stated that “exploration fieldwork activities” began in the areas under the earn-in agreement with Geophysx Jamaica Ltd.
“The main objective of this early work is to narrow down target areas with potential for tier-one deposits”, the MD&A stated.
Headquartered in Canada, Barrick Gold Corporation is the world’s second-largest gold and copper mining company. It operates 16 sites in 13 countries. Barrick generated revenue of US$3.4 billion for the September 2024 quarter, which resulted in net income of US$483 million, or one-third higher earnings, year-on-year.
In May 2024, Barrick Gold Corporation announced that its subsidiary entered into an agreement with Geophysx. The agreement initially provides Barrick with access to 4,000 square kilometres of consolidated land positions throughout Jamaica, and builds on datasets and soil samples from Geophysx. At the time, Barrick described Jamaica as having a comparable geology to the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic, which it partially owns and generates millions in profit. The agreement also gives Barrick the right to work with Geophysx to earn up to an “80 per cent joint-venture interest in designated properties” upon fulfilment of certain spending obligations and study-deliverable milestones. Barrick is acting as the operator, in partnership with Geophysx, leveraging Geophysx’s existing personnel, knowledge, facilities and equipment.
The Pueblo Viejo plant is currently undergoing a mine life-extension project to 2040. It is designed to sustain gold production above 800,000 ounces per year following full plant ramp-up and optimisation. Gold currently sells for around $2,615 per ounce, or two-thirds higher than the break-even price for mining. Meanwhile, the cost of copper is about US$4.05 per pound.
English (US) ·