In November 2023, the Company completed the execution of a gold stream agreement on the Galaxy gold mine (“Galaxy”) in South Africa owned and operated by Golconda Gold Ltd (TSXV:GG) (“Golconda”).

The stream is on gold production from the Galaxy gold mine at 20% of the gold spot price based on 3.5% of gold production for the first 8,000 gold oz and 2% thereafter up to 20,000 oz or 20 years. The stream is registered and secured against the mine. The stream was closed and funded on February 26, 2024. The mine will use Empress’ investment to purchase underground equipment and development to maximise mill throughput and drive production ounces higher with commensurate reduction in AISC.

Golconda acquired the Galaxy mine in November 2015.  Galaxy is situated 8 km west of the town of Barberton and 45 km west of the provincial capital of Nelspruit in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa.  The property covers 58.6 km2 and is part of the prolific Barberton Greenstone Belt.

Galaxy consists of 22 ore bodies, all of which can be accessed via adits at level 17 and level 22. Galaxy is currently mining at the following two main ore bodies:

• Galaxy Ore Body – a large pipe shaped ore body with a thickness of 35m and a strike of around 100m (the “Galaxy Ore Body”); and
• Princeton Ore Body – a steeply dipping ore body with a thickness of 5m and a strike of 300m (the “Princeton Ore Body”).

The current mine plan includes the mining of the Galaxy Ore Body and the Princeton Ore Body using a mechanised cut and fill mining method.  There are also extensive tailings around the Galaxy mine site which Golconda intends to use to supplement production.  Golconda has already upgraded the crushing circuit, float plant and filtration plant to 50,000 tonnes per month (“tpm”), from the original 15,000 tpm plant, which produces a gold concentrate. 

Galaxy is currently in Phase 1 of its expansion program taking production to 15,000 tpm and 1,100 recovered gold ounces per month. The proceeds from the Agreement will be used to fund the expansion required in Phase 2 to take production to 48,000 tpm and 2,800 recovered gold ounces per month.

Golconda Gold has completed the Galaxy Technical Report and the PEA (as such terms are defined below) for the Galaxy mine, which supports the expansion plans already undertaken and the future plans for expansion.  In addition, Golconda has a drill ready plan to expand the resource to over 4 million ounces, which encompasses the other 20 identified ore bodies.  Work is already underway to determine how this can support future expansion of Galaxy. Further information can be found in the technical report titled “NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Galaxy Gold Mine, South Africa” filed on sedarplus.ca on July 6, 2020.