Cortona sells North Monger for $2.7m

A day after confirming the viability of a the Dargues Reef gold project in New South Wales, Cortona Resources has sold its North Monger project in WA for $2.7 million.

The project was sold to Silver Lake Resources.

In a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange, Cortona said it now has cash resources of over $7 million.

"The Company's strong cash position will ensure that it can continue to fund aggressive exploration at its flagship Majors Creek Gold Project in NSW," the statement said.

"Two drilling rigs are currently focusing on near-mine exploration at Dargues Reef, which was the subject of a positive Feasibility Study released this week."

See company statement below:

Cortona Resources Limited ("Cortona" "the Company") (ASX:CRC) is pleased to advise that it has strengthened its cash resources to over $7 million after completing the sale of the North Monger Project in Western Australia to Silver Lake Resources Limited. Cortona's share of the sale is $2.7 million cash.

The Company's strong cash position will ensure that it can continue to fund aggressive exploration at its flagship Majors Creek Gold Project in NSW.

Two drilling rigs are currently focusing on near-mine exploration at Dargues Reef, which was the subject of a positive Feasibility Study released this week.

Cortona has identified a range of shallow gold targets close to the planned development at Dargues Reef. These include the Ruby Lode, located approximately 150 metres northeast of Dargues Reef. The discovery hole at Ruby Lode returned 12.6m @ 9.90g/t approximately 80 metres below the surface, and follow-up drilling has returned several other very significant intercepts along strike.

Other key near-mine targets at Dargues include:
- Chinamans Prospect: where previous drilling returned 4m @ 28.0g/t ~70 metres below the surface. Three follow up holes have returned results which include 0.7m @ 77.0g/t. Chinamans is located 100m south west of Dargues Reef;
- Scarlet Prospect: located ~200m west of Dargues Reef, where a soil anomaly is coincident with historic prospecting pits;
- Carmine Prospect: located 350 metres north of Dargues Reef which was discovered with an intercept of 3.4m @ 3.2g/t high up in one of the deep step out holes at Dargues Reef;
- Thompsons and Thompsons South Prospects: sites of historic mining where previous drill holes have intercepted anomalous gold mineralisation; and
- Additional shallow near-mine targets including historic prospecting pits, soil anomalies and Dargues 'look-alike' structures.

Targets further afield that have returned promising results from initial drill holes include Copper Ridge (1km), Hughen (600m), Tullock (800m), Snobs (1km) and Dreadnought (1km).

Cortona's Managing Director Peter van der Borgh commented: "The Dargues Reef Feasibility Study has given us a terrific 'base case' scenario of ~50,000oz of gold production a year with low operating costs and strong cash flows over a six year mine life. Now is a great time for us to have money in the bank to step up our exploration, and what better way to start than testing some of these near-mine targets, each of which offers the potential to grow our production and further improve the economics of the operation."