Noble Mineral Exploration Inc. (TSX-V:NOB, FRANKFURT: NB7, OTCQB:NLPXF) announced 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, each valued at $0.06 and consisting of one common share and one-half warrant exercisable at $0.15 per share for two years. CNC will retain a back-in right to purchase a 25% interest in the property at any time after the trigger date, defined as the earlier of 36 months from closing, $5 million in exploration expenditures, or a sale or change of control of Noble. The back-in price would be four times Noble's exploration expenditures.
The Lucas Gold Project is located approximately 30 km north of Timmins, Ontario, a region known for over 75 million ounces of gold production, and 20 km northeast of the Kidd Creek Mine, which has produced over 150 million tonnes of ore in its 58-year history. It is also 20 km east of the Crawford Nickel Resource being developed by CNC. The project is drill-ready with access via paved Highway 655, ample 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 earlier geophysical surveys. The company located 37 historical drill-hole collars and twinned three of them. No further work has been done since 2018. The project has six discrete induced polarization (IP) anomalous trends requiring follow-up, with only one trend tested by drilling to date. Gold mineralization is interpreted as structurally controlled, occurring as discrete lenses within a pyrite-plus-gold mineralized tuffaceous unit.
Future work plans include drilling on the initial IP anomaly to further define gold mineralization and testing the other five undrilled IP anomalies for similar mineralization. Stephen J. Balch, P.Geo., VP Exploration of CNC, and Wayne Holmstead, P.Geo., have reviewed and approved the technical information in this release as qualified persons under National Instrument 43-101.
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 property in Wawa, Ontario. Noble holds mineral rights in approximately 70,000 hectares in Northern Ontario and 25,000 hectares in Quebec, including Project 81 (18,000 hectares in Timmins-Cochrane), which hosts drill-ready gold, nickel-cobalt, and base metal targets. Additional properties include the Nagagami Carbonatite Complex and Boulder Project near Hearst, Ontario, and various properties in Quebec covering graphite, nickel-copper-PGM, uranium, rare earth, and scandium. More information is available at https://www.noblemineralexploration.com.
The transactions remain subject to negotiation of a definitive agreement and approvals from the TSX Venture Exchange. Forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from expectations.
