B2Gold (old)

B2GOLD JOINT VENTURE - KUTUVUOMA-AHVENJARVI-SINERMÄ

Overview

On August 13, 2015, the Company signed a binding Letter Agreement with B2Gold Corp., (“B2Gold”), granting B2Gold the right to earn up to an undivided 75% interest in an approximately 290 km2 (currently ~268 km2) project area that includes the Kutuvuoma and Ahvenjarvi prospects. Pursuant to the terms of the Letter Agreement, the Company formalized and signed a definitive Option Agreement with B2Gold on January 18, 2016. 

Under the terms of the Letter Agreement B2Gold was to complete $5,000,000 in exploration expenditures, pay Aurion $50,000 cash and issue 550,000 B2Gold shares over 4 years to earn a 51% interest. B2Gold can earn an additional 19% interest by spending a further $10,000,000 over 2 years. B2Gold can earn an additional 5% interest (for a total of 75%) by completing a bankable feasibility study.

The first-year commitment of $750,000 in exploration expenditures including 2,000 m of drilling and payment of $50,000 cash and 50,000 B2Gold shares was guaranteed. The Company subsequently agreed to a reduced drilling program for the first year.

On August 1, 2019, the Company received 200,000 B2Gold common shares, which were issued pursuant to the option agreement dated January 18, 2016.  On August 13, 2019, the Company received a Notice of Exercise of Option from B2Gold confirming that B2Gold fulfilled its obligations under the Option Agreement dated January 18, 2016, and that as of August 14, 2019, the Option to earn 51% was deemed to be exercised.

On October 15, 2021, the Company received a Notice of Exercise for the Second Option from B2Gold, indicating that B2Gold fulfilled its obligations under the Second Option, whereby B2Gold was required to spend $10,000,000 in exploration expenditures over 2 years to acquire an additional 19% interest in the JV, taking its total interest to 70%.

B2Gold JV Prospects

The JV area is located along and adjacent to the major crustal scale Sirkka Shear Zone and covers approximately 40 km strike length of prospective geology. The JV area includes recent discoveries such Sinermä and Kutuvuoma East and several historic gold prospects such as Kutuvuoma, Ahvenjärvi, Kettukuusikko, Hirvilavanmaa, Palovaara, Soretialehto, Soretiavuoma Tuongankuusikko. The historic prospects have seen limited amount of exploration despite returning encouraging drill intercepts.

Kutuvuoma Prospect

The Kutuvuoma prospect is a high-grade, shear zone hosted gold deposit that was discovered in the 1990s by Outokumpu Oy, a publicly listed company in which the Finnish state is the largest shareholder. Outokumpu Oy drilled 47 shallow core and reverse circulation drill holes totaling 3,425 m, testing Kutuvuoma within a very small area (approximately 175 m horizontally and 175 m vertically). No other drilling or trenching was conducted since the mid-1990’s. A small part of the deposit was test-mined in 1999.

Bedrock geology at Kutuvuoma is dominated by east to southeast trending Paleoproterozoic volcanic-sedimentary sequences of the CLGB’s Savukoski Group and currently defined gold mineralization on the property occurs in association with sulphide-bearing quartz vein arrays with disseminated sulphides in altered, albitic, siliceous meta-mudstones and meta-igneous rocks as well as in sulphide matrix breccias. The main deposit at Kutuvuoma occurs as a moderately west-plunging zone localized along a south dipping, sheared graphitic unit within sheared and altered Savukoski Group country rocks. These include komatiites as well as graphitic-sulphidic schist, fine grained meta-sandstone and thin interbedded marble. Kutuvuoma is interpreted to be located along strike and within the same geologic sequence as Rupert Resources’ Ikkari discovery. The distance between Kutuvuoma and Ikkari is 8 km.

Historic drilling highlights from Kutuvuoma include:

• 7.2 g/t Au over 19.40 m from 60.00 m
• 13.2 g/t Au over 5.00 m from 88.00 m
• 12.6 g/t Au over 7.00 m from 26.00 m

Exploration activities by the JV have included rreconnaissance prospecting, geological mapping, trenching, geophysical surveys, base of till sampling, diamond core drilling and preliminary metallurgical testwork. High-grade gold has been intercepted in drilling over a strike extent of approximately 1,080 m; mineralization remains open in all directions.

Drilling highlights from Kutuvuoma by JV:

• 8.59 g/t Au over 2.15 m from 21.4 m and 11.37 g/t over 13.3 m from 71.85 m (Drill hole KU16003)
• 1.76 g/t Au over 8.85 m from 38.65 m (Drill hole KU16001)
• 1.67 g/t Au over 5.05 m from 42.55 m (Drill hole KU16002)
• 6.74 g/t Au over 5.60 m from 121.20 m (KU20006), 200 m east of Outokumpu historical drilling
• 12.28 g/t Au over 2.75 m from 28.15 m (KU20008), 270 m west of Outokumpu historical drilling

Kutuvuoma East Prospect

The Kutuvuoma East prospect is located along strike and in between Rupert Resources’ Ikkari discovery (3-4.5 km to east) and the Kutuvuoma prospect (3.5-5 km to west) and within the metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks of the Savukoski group near the contact with the sedimentary rocks of the Kumpu group.

The initial, widely spaced, five-hole (1,259.1 m) diamond drilling program was completed in 2020 and tested selected geochemical (gold in base of till) and geophysical targets over an area extending 1,300 m in strike length. All drill holes intersected zones with elevated gold (>0.1 g/t Au) with mineralized zones encountered in multiple lithologies including ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks, siltstones, graphitic sediments and in contacts between volcanic rocks and felsic/porphyritic dykes.

2020 Drilling highlight from Kutuvuoma East:

• 14.77 g/t Au over 1.60 m from 42.20 m (KUE20003)
• 1.63 g/t Au over 2.80 m from 50.90 m (KUE20001)

New Discovery at Kutuvuoma East

In late 2021, B2Gold drilled a target approximately 1.2 kilometres west of Rupert Resources’ 3.95-million-ounce Ikkari Discovery. Drilling intersected broad zones of gold mineralization starting near surface.

Drilling highlight from Kutuvuoma-Ikkari Discovery:

• 1.84 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) over 52.4 metres (m) from 85.3 m (IKK21003), 
  • including 2.61 g/t Au over 21.2 m from 95.2 m and 2.42 g/t Au over 10.3 m from 127.5 m
• 1.42 g/t Au over 30.6 m from 34.2 m (IKK21002),
  • including 2.94 g/t Au over 6.45 m from 43.5 m 

The first three drill holes, totaling 775.1 m of a 5,000 m drill program, were collared 1.2 km to 1.5 km west of Rupert Resources’ 3.95 Moz Ikkari Discovery. The drill program has been planned to test selected geological, geochemical and geophysical targets along the Kutuvuoma-Ikkari structural corridor within the metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks of the Savukoski group near the contact with the sedimentary rocks of the Kumpu group within the Central Lapland Greenstone Belt.  

The Kutuvuoma-Ikkari corridor is an approximately 8 km long sequence of prospective geology along a domain boundary in the eastern part of the JV property extending from the Ikkari Discovery to the Kutuvuoma test pit. 

The drill holes intersected metavolcanic and metasedimentary sequence and gabbro intrusions or sills. The mineralized intervals are mainly hosted in altered and sheared mafic and ultramafic tuffs and tuffites with fine-grained pyrite as dissemination, interfolial sulphide or within narrow quartz-magnetite veins. The gold grades within the broader mineralized zones are relatively consistent. The mineralized intervals in drill holes IKK21002 and IKK21003 are approximately 60 m apart, and the mineralized envelope is potentially trending in an east-west or northeast-southwest orientation. The true thickness of the mineralized zones is not yet known. 

Sinermä Prospect

The Sinermä area is located in the western part of the JV property, approximately 22 km northwest of the Kutuvuoma prospect and 23 km SSW of Agnico-Eagle’s Kittilä Mine. The gold mineralized zones in the Sinermä area were discovered in 2020 via base of till sampling and geophysical survey programs, which were followed by excavation of five trenches and drilling of four diamond drill holes (total 647.7 m).

Highlights from Sinermä:

• Channel samples: 1.07 g/t Au over 42.40 m and 1.30 g/t Au over 20.80 m
• Drilling intercepts: 0.54 g/t Au over 40.20 m, 6.80 g/t Au over 0.75 m and 4.11 g/t Au over 1.40 m

Property History

The Company acquired the Kutuvuoma and Sila Properties from Dragon Mining Ltd (“Dragon”). According to the terms of the Letter of Intent, the Company finalized and signed a definitive Purchase Agreement on May 26, 2014. Pursuant to the terms of the Purchase Agreement and subject to regulatory approvals, the Company issued a total of 6,750,000 common shares to Dragon.  The Company also committed to incur a total of €1,000,000 in expenditures on these properties over three years. In addition, Dragon will retain a 3% Net Smelter Royalty (“NSR”) on any deposit mined by the Company within the projects or any defined Areas of Interest. The NSR could be purchased at any time on or before the sixth anniversary of signing the Purchase Agreement with a single cash payment of €4,000,000.  Upon successful resource definition, the Company will also make bonus payments to Dragon for the sum of €2,000,000 in cash or equivalent in common shares of the Company for the defining of 1,000,000 ounces of gold material and € 1,000,000 in cash or equivalent in common shares of the Company for the defining of every additional 1,000,000 ounces of gold equivalent material within the projects and the defined Area of Interests.