Impact: Positive
Aurion Resources (AU) has entered into a definitive option agreement with Kinross Gold Corp. (TSXV:K, Not Rated) granting Kinross the right to earn up to a 70% interest in the Launi East property, which is located to the southeast and adjacent to Aurion’s 100%-owned Risti property. AU has plenty of high priority properties to share with others and get other people’s money working for it. This strategy has paid off on the JV with B2Gold Corp. (TSX:BTO, Not Rated), with B2Gold funding the exploration that resulted in the Helmi discovery (read note). With AU now focused on exploring its own 100% owned discoveries at Risti, it wished to keep moving Launi East forward, and Kinross, AU’s largest strategic partner, appears to have been willing to double down. While already owning ~C$6.5 M worth of AU shares, it invests an additional US$10M directly in the project. We are excited to see accelerated exploration from Launi East. Visible gold targets are numerous and blind geophysical targets are common in the area. Systematic testing is required as much of this trend is covered by overburden. We suspect that Kinross may undertake an extensive Base of Till (BoT) sampling program to help further generate gold targets, following AU’s first pass of BoT sampling in 2021.
