Wheaton Precious Metals Corp on Wednesday said its subsidiary Wheaton Precious Metals International Ltd signed a deal with Lumina Gold Corp to acquire its 100% owned Cangrejos gold-copper project in Ecuador, which is currently in development.
The Vancouver-based precious metals streaming company said Wheaton International will pay Lumina a total upfront cash consideration of $300 million. $252 million will be paid in staged, equal instalments during the construction of Cangrejos. $48 million will be paid pre-construction.
Cangrejos is the largest gold deposit in Ecuador, located in El Oro province. It is set to be a high-margin mine with a 26-year mine life.
Wheaton said production is expected to average over 24,000 ounces of gold per year for the first 10 years of production, and over 24,500 oz of gold per year for the life of the mine.
Lumina is a precious and base metals exploration and development company based in Vancouver.
Wheaton President & Chief Executive Officer Randy Smallwood said: ‘We welcome the opportunity to work with the team at Lumina, who have done an outstanding job at working to de-risk the project and advancing it towards construction.
‘Wheaton looks forward to supporting Lumina both financially as they construct Cangrejos and with their ongoing comprehensive community engagement efforts.’
Shares in Wheaton were down 0.4% at 3,957.50 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.
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