Galane Gold looks to buy Vantage’s South African assets

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed Galane Gold has entered into a letter of intent (LoI) with South African-focused Vantage Goldfields to acquire all of its outstanding shares.

Vantage is an Australian company with mining assets in South Africa’s Barberton Greenstone Belt.

"This represents another significant step towards Galane's stated goal to reshape into a long-life and low-cost operation that can produce positive returns for investors across commodity cycles,” CEO Nick Brodie said in a statement.

The Vantage mines are located within 30 km of Galane’s existing operations at Galaxy Gold. “We hope to leverage synergies [between the mines] to create an operating asset in the Barberton area which, together with the our Galaxy property, is expected to result in a combined resource exceeding 5.8-million ounces,” he added.

This would stem from production of over 160 000 oz/y and an all-in sustaining cost of less than $900/oz.

Operations at Vantage's Barbrook and Lily mines were suspended in 2016 owing to financial difficulties and were placed in business rescue.

Unstable ground at the Lily mine resulted in the mine’s closure. A container, with three employees inside, has yet to be recovered following a February 2016 crown pillar collapse at the mine.