Australians stake more ground near Pickle Lake

Australian gold junior Auteco Minerals wasted little time establishing a foothold on a former mine property in northwestern Ontario.

The Perth-headquartered explorer staked an additional 130 square kilometres of land close to the Pickle Crow Gold Project to bring its total land package to more than 320 square kilometres.

The company signed an exploration earn-in agreement with Vancouver’s First Mining Gold in late January on this project, located north and east of the community of Pickle Lake.

Auteco signed a term sheet whereby it can earn up to an 80 per cent interest in the Pickle Crow Gold Project by spending $10 million in exploration over five years, along with $4.1 million in cash and the issuance of Auteco shares.

First Mining is devoting most of its attention to advancing its flagship Springpole Project, east of Red Lake, considered one of Canada's largest undeveloped deposits.

So far, First Mining CEO Dan Wilton is thrilled with what Auteco brings to the Pickle Lake partnership.

“We are pleased to see such quick progress being made by the Auteco team to advance the regional potential of Pickle Crow," he said in a Feb. 18 news release.

"The team has added vacant, underexplored and prospective greenstone belt to the property, securing more than 30 kilometres of strike length in a past-producing, high-grade gold district."

In a statement, Auteco executive chairman Ray Shorrocks appears ready to get started.

“The exploration team at Auteco is looking forward to getting started on the Pickle Crow asset and the Auteco management team is currently in Ontario establishing relationships with the key stakeholders and readying for the commencement of exploration at the property. We look forward to keeping the market updated as work progresses.”

The main Pickle Crow Gold Project is 19,000 hectares and was acquired by First Mining through its acquisition of PC Gold in November 2015.

The property contains one of the northwestern Ontario's highest grade former gold mines. Between 1935 and 1966, Pickle Crow Mine produced almost 1.5 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 16.14 grams per tonne.