North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Expatriate Resources says it has struck a deal with Atna Resources to purchase Atna's 39.4 percent interest in the Wolverine joint venture in the Yukon Territory. The deal, if approved by regulators, gives Vancouver-based Expatriate 100 percent ownership in the precious metals deposit and surrounding exploration properties.

Under the terms of the agreement, Expatriate will pay C$2 million in cash, issue 10 million shares and 5 million share-purchase warrants and provide a royalty on silver and gold production from the proposed mine. At current share prices, excluding royalty payments, the deal is valued at about C$6 million. Atna will walk away with about 11.7 percent of Expatriate.

The May 31 announcement "paves the way for advancing the completion of a feasibility study and development of Wolverine as an important new silver-gold-zinc-copper-lead mine," Expatriate said.

Wolverine contains about 75 million ounces of silver and 352,000 ounces of gold, as well as large amounts of zinc, lead and copper, Expatriate said.

"Recent improvements in the zinc concentrate markets and the rapid increase in selenium price has changed the market outlook for concentrates from the Wolverine deposit," the company said in a release. "The outlook for silver is also positive."

Logan exploration set aside

"Changing market conditions now make it feasible to reevaluate Wolverine as a stand-alone mine," the company said.

Expatriate said it has resumed planning and permitting of the proposed Wolverine underground test-mining and exploration program to provide the additional information required to finalize the Wolverine portion of a bankable feasibility study.

Expatriate said the Wolverine deposit is "key to development of the Finlayson district as a major base-precious metal mining camp."

The company has been evaluating the development of Wolverine in conjunction with the Logan deposit in southern Yukon. Expatriate said it intends to "expand exploration on its extensive claim holdings … concurrent with ongoing engineering studies and economic evaluation of Wolverine."

Exploration and engineering of the Logan deposit will be set aside until the evaluation of Wolverine is complete, the company said.

Expatriate is a base and precious metals exploration and development junior with projects in Yukon, Nunavut, Ontario, California and Chile.