US-focused gold explorer American Pacific Mining (APM) has signed a definitive agreement to buy private miner Madison Metals’ interest in its namesake copper/gold project, in Montana, US.

The Madison project is a fully-permitted, past producing copper/gold mine that is under option to Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Exploration.

“Our corporate strategy is to build a portfolio of high-grade properties in the Western US that will attract midtier partners to come in and help advance these assets. Madison certainly fulfils this objective and complements our growing portfolio of gold, silver and now copper assets as well,” said APM CEO Warwick Smith.

The project is currently under an earn-in, joint venture agreement, whereby Kennecott Exploration Company has to spend $30-million to earn up to 70% of the project.

APM also announced that it would roll back its shares, three for one. The company would then issue Madison Metals $25-million shares over a 24-month period to acquire the stake.

“Madison is a great acquisition for APM. The project has infrastructure, power, roads, 3 000 ft of underground development, recent production and plenty of exploration potential,” said APM president Eric Saderholm.

“This high-grade project includes two underground mines, the Broadway and the Madison mines, plus two distinct geological targets: a high-grade gold skarn and a deeper copper gold porphyry system. Plus, the joint venture partner is currently performing a lot of exploration work to better define what may well be the feeder system for the mineralisation at Madison.”

The project is located in the heart of Montana’s prolific copper/gold belt, 38 km southeast of the world-renowned Butte mining district.

The Broadway mine produced 144 000 oz of gold from 1880 to 1950. The Madison mine was developed between 2005 and 2011 and generated 7 570 oz of gold and 3.02-million pounds of copper from bulk samples of 19 803 t.

Former owner Broadway Gold Mining refurbished parts of the Madison mine in 2017, rehabilitating the underground workings in order to access certain stopes and mineralisation, allowing for a successful exploration drill programme to take place as well.