Commander Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: CMD) reports that AngloGold Ashanti has received final approval from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) for the Baffin Island Farm-in Joint Venture agreement announced September 3, 2009 (the "Agreement"). Under the Agreement, AngloGold's subsidiary AngloGold Ashanti Holdings Inc. ("AngloGold") has the option to earn a 51% interest in the Baffin Island Gold project by completing $20 million in exploration expenditures. Once vested at 51% AngloGold can elect to increase its ownership to 70% in the property by funding all expenditures through to completion of a feasibility study.
The private placement with AngloGold announced as part of the September 3rd Agreement has closed. A total of 10,000,000 Units at $0.12 each have been issued to Ashanti Goldfields Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of AngloGold, for gross proceeds of $1.2 million. Units consist of one common share and one-half share purchase warrant. Each whole share purchase warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share at a price of $0.24 until November 17, 2011. The securities have a hold period and may not be traded until March 18, 2010. Under the rules of SARB, AngloGold is required to hold at least a 10% equity stake in Commander as part of the Agreement.
In addition, AngloGold and Commander have amended the Agreement such that AngloGold is committed to funding $5.5 million in exploration expenditures over an initial 12 month term rather than a 24 month term as provided in the Agreement. The completion date for the initial term is November 14th 2010. Commander will manage the program during the initial term and recover a 10% management fee from AngloGold on all project expenditures.
The work program completed on the Baffin Project in 2009 was managed by Commander and fully funded by AngloGold as part of the initial term of the Agreement.
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The Baffin Island Gold Project is a district-scale gold project covering an entire greenstone belt approximately 140 kilometres in length. The property is host to a pipeline of gold zones, prospects and showings, including the advanced Malrok Zone (previously reported drill results include 9.15 g/t gold over 6.0 metres, 12.10 g/t gold over 3.0 metres), Ridge Lake Zone (previously reported drill results include 21.4 g/t gold over 4.24 metres, 10.17 g/t gold over 4.45 metres), early stage Durette prospect and new and as yet un-drilled discoveries such as the 3.5 kilometre long Hebert Prospect Area that includes the main Hebert Zone (91.06 g/t over 1.6 metres in channel samples and 1388 g/t gold in grabs) and the newly discovered Hebert South (373.9 g/t gold over 0.25 metres, 241.30 g/t gold over 0.25 metres) and Traciane (66.84 g/t gold over 0.38 metres, 31.49 g/t gold over 0.85 metres) Prospects.
We are awaiting results from more than 300 saw-cut channel and rock samples collected from the main Hebert Zone in 2009.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors,
Kenneth Leigh, President & CEO
Shares Issued: 89,830,016
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