Island Passage Exploration Limited (IPX or the “Company”) announces
the closure of a $2.5 million USD financing and the appointment of
John Robins, P.Geo., to its Board of Directors.
“On behalf of our Board of Directors I am delighted to announce
that Island Passage has made significant progress since inception.
Field work continues at the Isina exploration license (EL02), and
we are building a world-class team to advance mineral exploration
in one of the most prospective parts of the world. Until very
recently, Bougainville was under an exploration moratorium since
imposed in the early 1970s. The Autonomous Bougainville Government
(ABG) and our customary landowner partners have been very welcoming
of Island Passage. Most importantly, we are finding many
stakeholders on the island who visualize a prosperous future for
the people of Bougainville through responsible resource
development,” said Donald McInnes, Chairman and CEO of Island
Passage.
Mr. McInnes continued, “In late October, we completed our first
ever board tour of Bougainville. We are proud to have been received
at the mountain village of Isina with a warm reception, including a
traditional dance and welcome to their lands by the people of Isina
and their Paramount Chief David Dapound. Our team also visited
several of our exciting new prospects, where we collected samples
and noted the occurrence of visible gold and copper minerals from
one of the sites. A video of the welcome and photos of the tour can
be seen here.”
Financing
The Company has issued 2.5 million common shares at a price of
US $1.00 for gross proceeds of US $2.5 million. Members of the Boad
of Directors and Advisory Board members subscribed for 520,000
shares. Subscribers to the financing also include legendary mine
finder and financier Rob McEwen, who through Evanachan Ltd.,
subscribed for 1 million shares. In conjunction with the
investment, the Company and Evanachan entered into an investor
rights agreement, which provides for certain rights and protections
for Evanachan.
Board Appointment
John Robins, P. Geo., is an award-winning prospector, geologist
and financier with 35 years experience in professional geology.
John is a steward of the junior mining industry and the co-founder
and principal of Discovery Group. His entrepreneurship has created
over $2.6 billion in M&A activity and generated over C$1
billion in direct and indirect mineral expenditures. He was
involved in several monumental discoveries, including the Yukon’s
5Moz Coffee Gold Deposit, Ontario’s Great Bear Project and the
Aviat and Churchill diamond districts of Nunavut. John holds a
number of leadership positions in the industry, including Executive
Chairman of K2 Gold, Chair of Elemental Royaties, Director of
Fireweed Metals, and Strategic Advisor to CopperEx, Defense Metals,
Kodiak Copper, Prospector Metals, and ValOre Metals.
Technical Advisory Board Appointments
Tom Garagan is an economic geologist with more
than 40 years experience. He is recently retired from the role of
Senior Vice President, Exploration for B2Gold Corp., which he
cofounded and served since 2007. Mr. Garagan was with Bema Gold
from 1991 to 2007 and was appointed Vice President of Exploration
in 1996. He has worked in North and South America, East and West
Africa and Russia. Mr. Garagan has served as a director and/or
officer of several other public companies operating in the resource
sector. Mr. Garagan has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in
geology from the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Quinton Hennigh is a globally renowned
exploration geologist with 30+ years of precious metals exploration
and mining experience. Dr. Hennigh began his career in gold
exploration after obtaining his PhD in Geology/Geochemistry from
the Colorado School of Mines. Early in his career he worked for
major gold mining companies including Homestake Mining (now Barrick
Gold Corp.), Newcrest Mining, and Newmont Corp. Later, Dr. Hennigh
founded Novo Resources Corp, acting as its CEO and currently
serving as co-Chairman. He has played a key role in major global
discoveries such as First Mining Gold's Springpole gold deposit in
Ontario, Kirkland Lake Gold's Fosterville gold mine in Australia,
the Rattlesnake Hills gold deposit in Wyoming, and Lion One's
Tuvatu gold project in Fiji, among many others. Dr. Hennigh is
currently the Geologic and Technical Director at Crescat Capital
and CEO of private silver miner, San Cristobal Mining.
Craig Parry. Through the course of his career,
Craig has been a founder, director, CEO, senior executive and
geologist working across a broad range of commodities with several
companies. Craig is a Co-Founder and Partner of Inventa Capital
Corp., a venture capital advisory firm dedicated to the acquisition
and development of assets in the natural resource sector. He is
currently lead director of Skeena Resources Ltd. He is a founder
and Chairman of Vizsla Silver Corp., Vizsla Copper Corp. and Gold
Bull Resources. He was a founder, CEO and/or director of
IsoEnergy Ltd., NexGen Energy Ltd., EMR Capital, Tigers Realm Coal,
Tigers Realm Minerals, and G-Resources Group. He worked for Rio
Tinto from 2000 to 2008.
About Isina Resource Holdings Ltd. IRHL was
founded in 2009 with the directors drawn from the chiefs of the
nine major clans and their subclans in south Central Bougainville.
As the custodians of their customary clan-owned land, the 43
directors represent the customary landowner families. In an
exercise of sovereignty over their mineral rights, they applied for
and were granted an exploration license (EL02) over their lands.
The licence boundary is situated 9 km southeast of the historic
Panguna open pit copper mine along the Crown Prince Range and
extends a further 26 km to the southeast. The tenement contains
wholly within it the area known as P.A.7B, which was one of the
seven exploration tenements previously held by Bougainville Copper
Limited (formerly controlled by Rio Tinto) surrounding Panguna.
About Island Passage Exploration Ltd. A private
Canadian company purpose built in 2022 to facilitate the finance,
technical, commercial, and business development expertise that will
be necessary to drive exploration and development on Bougainville.
The Company is founded on the principle of responsible resource
development in partnership with indigenous and customary
landowners, and its leadership has a long track record of success
on multiple such ventures.
About Island Passage Development Ltd. The PNG
company is 100% owned by IPX to bring exploration finance and
technical capacity from Canada to Bougainville to carry out
exploration on EL02.
For further information please go to islandpassage.ca
Or email Donald McInnes, CEO at donald@islandpassage.ca
Or follow IPX on Facebook at (3) Island Passage Development |
Facebook
Figure 1 - Map of Central Bougainville Showing
Historic Panguna Licenses and EL02
Paramount Chief David Dupound and clan members
welcoming the IPX board of directors to Isina Village
Customary Chief and Pastor of the Isina People
Welcoming IPX Directors
A video accompanying this announcement is available at
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ab6f5f58-9e97-4d7b-b18b-1a4bfe8901ec
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/11db711a-e1ed-43d7-951e-a997d69a197d
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fc063aab-5157-4931-8a10-4ab7b3e8fd13
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1bf1d3f6-5587-4738-a0a5-ecc4e616cb52
