Battery Minerals Limited (ASX: BAT) is pleased to advise that it has signed a binding agreement to acquire 67% of Gippsland Prospecting Pty Ltd (Gippsland Prospecting), which has the sole right to apply for a highly-prospective exploration licence immediately adjacent to Stavely Minerals' (ASX: SVY) Thursday's Gossan copper-gold project in Victoria.
Known as Block 4, the tenement covers 809sqkm and hosts the historic Moyston gold mine, which produced 75,000oz at 22g/t Au. The exploration licence is also just 7km from the rich Stawell gold mine, which has produced 5Moz of gold. Gippsland Prospecting won the Victorian Government tender, which gave it the sole right to apply for the exploration licence.
Battery Minerals will pay the shareholders of Gippsland Prospecting $335,000 and issue them 294,373,780 shares in return for 67 per cent of Gippsland Prospecting. Block 4 will be renamed E67801 on grant of the exploration licence.
The acquisition is subject to the approval of Battery Minerals shareholders and the grant of the exploration licence. Under the terms of the agreement, Gippsland Directors Kent Balas and Darryl Clark, who are both exploration geologists, will become Directors of Battery Minerals.
Block 4 is considered highly prospective for shear zone-hosted Orogenic gold deposits such as Stawell as well as volcanic-hosted base metals mineralisation and large-scale Cadia Ridgeway-type porphyry copper mineralisation, within the well-defined Stavely volcanic belt.
The adjoining Stavely tenement hosts the Thursday's Gossan porphyry copper-gold discovery. Stavely has reported high-grade copper intersections and stated that the mineralisation remains open along strike and down dip.
It is also adjacent to the tenement which hosts Navarre Minerals' (ASX: NML) structurallycontrolled gold discovery in the Stawell gold corridor.
Battery Minerals Chairman David Flanagan said there was extensive evidence to support the view that Block 4 was highly prospective for both gold and base metals.
'Block 4 has the same rocks that host the Thursday's Gossan copper-gold discovery and it is in the same corridor that hosts Navarre's gold discoveries. Block 4 also hosts the Moyston gold mine and it is right next door to the Stawell gold mine,' Mr Flanagan said.
'The tenement has not been thoroughly explored for more than a decade and even then it was limited to shallow drilling near the Stawell mine.
'Given the recent substantial exploration success close by and the outstanding prospectivity of the geology, we are looking forward to applying modern exploration techniques and drilling to a new project that has effectively been mothballed for over 10 years.'
Background
The Moyston Gold Field was discovered in 1857, opened in 1858 and worked for a total of 10 years. Exclusively mined from underground, the workings extend over approximately 2.2km of strike length, Production was predominantly sourced from a 1 km long section of the gold field. Eight companies developed the mines after initial prospectors discovered near surface mineralization, eventually amalgamating into three companies.
The average grade of ore produced in 1861 was reported 30 to 40 g/t Au with this gradually falling to 9-12 g/t Au by 1870. The average grade varied between mines from 8.8 g/t at the Kangaroo to 28.3 g/t at the North Star Extended (northern most mine). The majority of mines closed with a reported recovered grade of 15 g/t on the lowermost stoped levels.
Background Information on the proposed new directors
Kent Balas is an Exploration Geologist with more than 10 years of experience across multiple continents. He has been involved with exploration projects in Australia, Africa, North America, Sri Lanka and Central Asia in Mineral Sands, Base Metals, Gold and Iron ore. From 2013 Kent lived in Kazakhstan and helped Iluka Resources to establish a base in Central Asia. In 2015 Kent formed an exploration services business, Aurora Minerals Group, based in Astana, Kazakhstan. Here he was involved in using state of the art exploration technologies for the first time in Central Asia. Kent holds a BSc from the University of Melbourne.
Dr Darryl Clark is an exploration geologist whose career has taken him throughout Australia, Central Asia and South East Asia for over 25 years. His responsibilities over the last 14 years have involved him in a diverse range of technological, political and cultural environments with unique challenges. During previous corporate roles with both Vale and BHP Billiton, and in consulting roles including SRK, he has been responsible for business development strategies, designing multi-commodity exploration programs and the co-ordination of exploration teams to deliver discovery events. Currently, Dr Clark is the CEO of a private gold mining company (RG Gold) located in Kazakhstan and a Non-Executive Director for Peako Ltd an ASX listed company focused on base metal and gold exploration in the East Kimberly of Western Australia. Previously Dr Clark was a director of ASX listed Xanadu Mines Ltd.
Background Information on Battery Minerals
In addition to the above acquisition, Battery Minerals Limited ('Battery Minerals') is an ASX listed Australian company with two world-class graphite deposits in Mozambique, being Montepuez and Balama Central. Battery Minerals has produced high quality graphite flake concentrate at multiple laboratories. Subject to completing project financing, Battery Minerals intends to commence graphite flake concentrate production from its Montepuez Graphite Project at a rate of 50,000tpa at an average flake concentrate grade of 96% TGC. The company has previously disclosed the combined Mozambique Graphite projects have potential to produce in excess of 150,000tpa of high-quality flake graphite.
While continuing to pursue cost effective financing options for the graphite projects, the Company has identified the complimentary battery mineral exploration project at Gippsland in Western Victoria. The Gippsland Project is host to significant strike length of the Stavely Volcanics, the Moyston shear and the Miga Arc all considered prospective for base metals and gold in the region. Battery Minerals will continue to actively pursue discoveries in these areas.
Contact:
David Flanagan
Tel: +61 8 6148 1000
Email: info@batteryminerals.com
BATY MINE 
