Red 5 subsidiary Darlot Mining Company will advance exploration activities at Ardea’s Mt Zephyr and Darlot East gold projects through Ardea subsidiary Ardea Exploration.

The JV will see Red 5 spend $1.5 million within two years to earn a 60 per cent interest in the tenements, and includes the option to earn a further 20 per cent interest by spending another $800,000 within three years from commencement.

This provides Red 5 with an 80 per cent interest in the projects overall.

Red 5 managing director Mark Williams said the JV will provide an opportunity to boost the one million tonne per annum throughput of the Darlot processing plant.

“Following the recent delivery of the final feasibility study for the development of a bulk mining and processing operation at King of the Hills (KOTH), Red 5’s growth vision is based on the establishment of two separate production hubs at KOTH and Darlot,” he said.

“This joint venture farm-in agreement with Ardea Resources provides an exciting opportunity for the discovery of gold resources within economic haulage distance of the Darlot processing plant, which is currently operating at one million tonne per annum throughput.”

Red 5’s total footprint in Western Australia’s Eastern Gold Fields region now sits at 1919 square kilometres.

Williams said Ardea’s previous exploration programs at Mt Zephry and Darlot East have delivered already shown strong potential.

“Ardea’s grassroots exploration programs have delineated a series of highly-prospective targets, including the high- priority Gale Prospect which shows interesting early-stage analogies to our 4.1 million ounce KOTH deposit,” he said.

The Gale prospect is located at the Mt Zephyr project which includes five exploration licenses, while Darlot East has two exploration licenses that are adjacent to the Darlot project’s tenements.

“We are looking forward to getting on the ground to commence drilling and exploration programs at both the Mt Zephyr and East Darlot projects,” Williams said.