Barksdale Capital Corp. (BRO:TSX.V), a Vancouver-based exploration company, begins trading on the TSX Venture Exchange today under the symbol BRO. The company's listing is transferring from the NEX exchange.
Barksdale holds an option on the Sunnyside project in Arizona. The project is home to a porphyry copper system that offers multiple exploration targets, with the company initially focusing on a zinc skarn that it believes to be an extension of the Taylor deposit.
"Think of the Sunnyside porphyry as the engine that drove the system."
Sunnyside is adjacent to Arizona Mining's Taylor deposit, an advanced-stage zinc-lead-silver project. The preliminary economic assessment released by Arizona Mining in April projected an after-tax IRR of 42%, an initial capex of $457 million, a 1.7-year payback, a 19-year mine life and total operating costs of $48/ton. Subsequent drilling has increased the resource. Arizona Mining, which anticipates production beginning in 2020, currently has a market cap of CA$1.05 billion.
Zinc was it the best performing metal on the LME last year, increasing 90%, gains that have continued into 2017. The third quarter saw zinc rise 16%, breaking through $3,000 per tonne, and reaching a 10-year peak.
Barksdale inked an option agreement with Regal Resources to earn up to a 67.5% interest in the Sunnyside property. In order to earn a 51% interest, Barksdale will need to pay Regal CA$2.95 million cash and 10.1 million common shares and spend CA$6 million on the property in the first two years of the option. Paying an additional CA$0.55 cash and 4.9 million shares plus spending an additional CA$6 million on the property in an additional two-year period will bump Barksdale's interest up to 67.5%.
On Oct. 5, Barksdale announced that it completed a non-brokered private placement of 13.53 million common shares at $0.40 per share for gross proceeds of $5.4 million. It also revealed that it made the initial option payment of $650,000 cash and 1,250,000 common shares to Regal Resources.
"The Sunnyside porphyry complex is almost certainly the source of Arizona Mining's Taylor-Hermosa body."
Noted geologist Dr. Peter Megaw, the chief exploration officer of MAG Silver Corp. (MAG:TSX; MAG:NYSE.MKT), serves as an adviser to the Barksdale board. He told Streetwise Reports that he believes that the Sunnyside intrusive complex, which lies within Barksdale's property, is the center of a zoned porphyry copper to zinc-lead-silver replacement system and that the company should focus exploration on the rings or spokes of mineralization that surround the porphyry center. These systems show a classic outward transition from dominance by copper to zinc to lead to silver and each ring potentially contains large continuous bodies of high-grade multi-metal mineralization. He believes that the Sunnyside porphyry complex is almost certainly the source of Arizona Mining's Taylor-Hermosa body, and says that his research indicates that this type of system seldom contains only one major offshoot.
"Think of the Sunnyside porphyry as the engine that drove the system, occupying the bullseye of a series of concentric rings each up to 1 kilometer wide that potentially hold bodies containing millions of tons of high-grade mineralization." Megaw stated. "The porphyry bullseye is not the target, it's the bodies in the rings that you want to look for. One is already well known and there is plenty of room for more between the porphyry and the limits of Barksdale's ground."The permitting process can be lengthy, but Megaw said that Regal initiated it about a year ago, so Barksdale is not beginning from scratch. While it awaits the drill permits, surface work and satellite imagery can move forward.
The Fraser Institute ranks Arizona as the world's seventh best mining jurisdiction.
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