JV's final payments complete Coolgardie gold acquisition

Kalgoorlie-based gold company Focus Minerals Ltd announced final cash payments had been made by the Redemption joint venture to complete the acquisition of the Coolgardie Gold project.

The joint venture includes Focus Minerals and Canadian-based Committee Bay Resources Ltd with final payments of $258,750 made by each party to vendor Leviathan Resources Ltd.

Earlier this month, Focus Minerals produced further encouraging exploration results at its 235,000-ounce Redemption joint venture Dreadnought project.

Below is the full announcement:

WA-based gold company Focus Minerals Ltd (ASX: FML) today announced that the final cash payments have been made to complete the acquisition of the Coolgardie Gold Project by the Redemption Joint Venture (Focus Minerals and Canadian-based Committee Bay Resources Ltd (TSX-V: CBR) under the original acquisition agreement announced last year.

The completion of the acquisition marks another significant milestone for the Redemption Joint Venture as its exploration and feasibility program within the consolidated Coolgardie Project gathers momentum. The Joint Venture has announced a series of positive exploration results in recent weeks, including from the Dreadnought and The Mount Projects.

Focus said today that final payments of A$258,750 had been made by each party to vendor Leviathan Resources Limited and acknowledged, representing full and final satisfaction of the balance of the consideration payable pursuant to the Leviathan Acquisition Agreement dated 8 June 2005.

The Redemption Joint Venture covers an area of 210 square kilometers at Coolgardie in Western Australia, one of the world's most significant gold and nickel mining regions, and includes the fully permitted 1.2 million tonne per annum centrally located Three Mile Hill treatment plant. The tenements contain Indicated resources of 315,720 ounces gold (5.32 million tonnes at 1.8g/t gold) and Inferred resource of 1,080,825 ounces gold (13.7 million tonnes at 2.5g/t gold).

Committee Bay is sole funding A$8 million of exploration expenditure at Coolgardie in stages over three years with a first-year minimum commitment of A$2.7 million. The overall objective of the Joint Venture is to define sufficient reserves to enable the Three Mile Hill Plant to operate at full capacity with 5 years of scheduled ore treatment, providing cash flow to fully explore the balance of its highly prospective tenement area.

Focus Minerals' Managing Director, Mr Peter Williams, said exploration and pre-development work was proceeding across several fronts, with the focus on expanding existing resources and converting them to mineable reserves as rapidly as possible to underpin future production from the Three Mile Hill Plant.