VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian exploration junior Pacton rose to a new 52-week high on Monday after it announced that it has agreed to acquire the Friendly Creek exploration licence and mining leases, in Western Australia, from private Australian vendors.

The Vancouver-based company has signed a binding letter of intent (LoI) through which it will acquire five mining leases and one exploration licence, covering an area of 31.36 km².

Under the terms of the LoI, which will be formalised by a definitive agreement among the parties, the company will buy Friendly Creek for C$25 000 in cash and by issuing 2.5-million Pacton shares.

Importantly, Pacton pointed out that Friendly Creek is historically one of the richest known areas for alluvial nuggets within the Pilbara region, where a large amount of alluvial fine grained gold to multiple considerable-sized nuggets have been recovered, including a 127 oz nugget in 1888 and a 165 oz nugget in 1892.

According to Pacton, the mining leases provide the potential for immediate large-scale bulk sampling to take place, with existing on-site infrastructure – including an operational camp facility – providing a shorter pathway to cash generation.

The properties host alluvial, eluvial and bedrock mining historical gold workings that extend over a 10 km strike, and are located directly adjacent to important exploration properties controlled by TSX-V-listed Novo Resources and ASX-listed Kairos Minerals.

“The acquisition of the Friendly Creek project, with granted mining leases, clearly places Pacton with a strategic advantage ahead of our peers in creating the opportunity to rapidly conduct large-scale bulk sampling programmes. The historical discovery of large gold nuggets at Friendly Creek and an identified mineralised strike length of 10 km, is compelling to justify an upcoming intensive exploration programme,” Pacton interim president and CEO Alec Pismiris stated.

Further, the company expects to benefit from the regional knowledge and technical expertise provided by one of the vendors Gardner Mining. Gardner houses corporate finance executives, geologists, prospectors and mining executives with strategic relationships to the local communities in which it operates.

Pacton expects to get under way with a comprehensive review of historical mining and exploration activities conducted on the property; acquiring and interpreting high-resolution airborne imagery to refine the palao drainage interpretation; mapping of regolith, project geology and structural controls relating to mineralisation; infill and extensional geochemical sampling targeting gold; and conducting metal detecting and small-scale dry blowing to identify the presence of surficial gold nuggets.

The announcement on Monday sent Pacton’s shares rising 32.5% on Monday to C$1.02 a share.