VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior gold producer Goldsource Mines has entered into an option to acquire the Bishop Growler property located about 3 km from its operating Eagle Mountain gold project, in Guyana.

The Vancouver-based miner's joint venture partner Kilroy Mining agreed to the option on behalf of the company, saying the fifteen small-scale mining claims cover an area of about 2.5 km².

It is located within a major south-west to north-east-trending mineralised corridor that aligns Eagle Mountain and the historical Omai gold mine, situated 40 km from Eagle Mountain, which was last operated by Iamgold in 2007, and which produced about 3.7-million ounces of gold over its mine life.

Bishop Growler is currently owned by a local Guyanese vendor that operates an artisanal gold mine on the property. Goldsource's existing 5 030 ha Eagle Mountain prospecting licence surrounds Bishop Growler and is located on the paleo-proterozoic greenstones of the Guiana Shield. The owner produces gold by mining veins and gold-enriched saprolite, related to the same mineralised granodiorite pluton associated with the Eagle Mountain deposit.

"We are pleased to have secured a strategic land package proximal to Eagle Mountain. Bishop Growler enlarges our gold mineralised footprint in the area and, together with our surrounding prospecting licence, provides access to this north-western trend for a comprehensive exploration effort. We believe the newly optioned area has good potential for additional gold-enriched saprolite, as well as mineralised hard rock," president Yannis Tsitos said in a news release.

The company plans to allocate funds to further access the property and start exploration work in the current quarter.

CATALYSTS
Meanwhile, Goldsource's main focus remains the completion of a prefeasibility study (PFS) at Eagle Mountain by the second half of the year.

Subject to executing definitive documentation, the company can earn a 100% interest in the property by paying $525 000 over three years in staged payments. A further payment of $500 000 is due on exercise. The option can be terminated without cost at any time on one-months' notice.

Goldsource is working up to building a 4 000 t/d to 5 000 t/d day openpit gravity/carbon-in-leach gold operation, leveraging the near-service saprolite ore found at Eagle Mountain for a low strip ratio and low production costs. The company currently operates the Eagle Mountain plant at lower volumes on selected days to collect information for PFS work.

In a recent interview with Mining Weekly Online, Tsitos stressed the company's immediate focus is on increasing the company's saprolite resources to a minimum of 600 000 oz, grading between 1 g/t to 1.5 g/t gold, which he expects to achieve through expansion and in‐fill drilling which started in May last year.

The company also expects to release a new resource statement for Eagle Mountain in the current quarter.

Goldsource also announced that it has appointed director and COO Eric Fier as the new executive chairperson of the board. He replaced Graham Thody, who will remain as an independent director, lead director and chair of the audit committee.