Vancouver-headquartered Barksdale Resources on Wednesday announced that it would acquire two copper exploration projects in Santa Cruz, Arizona, from Kennecott Exploration and, in a separate transaction with Regal Resources, that it would consolidate a 100% interest in the nearby Sunnyside project.

The acquisition of the Goat Canyon and Canelo copper projects from Kennecott, a Rio Tinto subsidiary, will more than double Barksdale’s footprint to about 12 508 ha.

The acquisition includes geophysical survey data covering the new projects, as well as Sunnyside and San Antonio, the TSX-V-listed junior said.

Goat Canyon is an early-stage porphyry copper/molybdenum exploration project, about 10 km north-west of Sunnyside and Canelo is an early stage copper porphyry and skarn/CRD exploration project, about 10 km north-northeast of Sunnyside.

To acquire the projects and the data, Barkdale paid Kennecott $35 000 in cash and a 2% net smelter royalty covering both properties.

Meanwhile, Barksdale acquired 100% of Sunnyside in a transaction valuing Regal’s shares at $0.37 each, which includes the repayment of all Regal’s outstanding debt and a partial payment of taxes owing to the company.

"This transaction is the culmination of years of hard work by our team, including productive and detailed negotiations over the past few months with the new Regal board of directors. As we near the end of the Sunnyside permitting process, consolidating the balance of Sunnyside under one roof is the most logical step to unlocking the potential value of not only Sunnyside, but the entire district-scale mineral rights package that Barksdale has been working to expand,” stated Barksdale president and CEO Rick Trotman.

To buy the remaining interest in the Sunnyside project, Barksdale would issue Regal 18.15-million shares, release from escrow 3.85-million shares that are currently held in Regal’s name, take on up to $4-million of Regal’s existing debt facilities and future payments of a portion of US Federal taxes on behalf of Regal.