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Sipa Resources (ASX:SRI) commences drilling at Paterson North

ASX News, Mining
ASX:SRI      MCAP $3.879M
21 June 2022 17:20 (AEST)

Sipa Resources (SRI) has commenced drilling at its Paterson North project in Western Australia’s prolific Paterson Province.

The drilling is part of a farm-in and joint venture agreement with Rio Tinto Exploration (RTX), owned by Rio Tinto (RIO), where RTX can earn an 80 per cent interest in stages.

The program is expected to take about six weeks and will include up to 4000 metres of reverse circulation drilling to primarily test regional targets.

As part of the 2022 exploration program, Sipa and RTX will also be undertaking further surveys to obtain additional geophysical data over the project area.

Under the farm-in, RTX will spend $12 million to earn 70 per cent interest and for 80 per cent, RTX is required to continue sole funding to the earlier of a JORC resource or the completion of an order of magnitude study.

“The commencement of drilling at Paterson North marks an exciting step forward for the company and its farm-in partner, Rio Tinto Exploration,” Sipa Managing Director Pip Darvall said.

“It follows an extensive period of technical collaboration between the two companies, and
commencing the program ahead of schedule is a great result. We look forward to updating investors as the campaign progresses.”

Drilling at Paterson North marks a busy field season for Sipa, which has planned additional drilling programs in July and August at two other sites in northern WA.

The programs are for Barbwire Terrance and Wolfe Basin.

On the market, Sipa was up 5.56 per cent and ended the day with shares trading at 3.8 cents.

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