Taurus Gold, British Virgin Islands-based West African explorer, has entered into a joint venture (JV) agreement with Randgold Resources to explore and potentially develop the Bakolobi gold project, located 30 km south of Randgold’s Loulo mine, in Mali’s south-west.
Taurus Gold chairperson, Jonathan Schneider, said Taurus believes that Randgold is the perfect strategic partner for this project with its record of successfully developing gold projects in West Africa, allowing Taurus to focus its resources on its advanced projects in Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso. Taurus will retain a material interest in the project, while removing any funding requirement until it has advanced to the feasibility study stage.
Under the terms of the agreement, Randgold would fund all costs to complete a prefeasibility study for the project, and the company would be bound by minimum yearly work commitments.
Randgold would initially own a 51percent interest in the JV, which it could increase to 65percent by funding a feasibility study, if Taurus did not want to do so, or if Taurus failed to fund its proportionate share of the cost.
Further, upon completing the feasibility study, each party would be required to fund its proportionate share of all development and mining costs, failing which, its participating interest would be subject to dilution.
