Asante Gold Partners with Goknet Mining for Kubi Project

Goknet and Asante Gold have just announced a 50/50 split partnership to build out the Kubi gold project in Ghana, the companies announced today.

The Kubi project is located 15km south of Asante's 60 million ounce Obuasi Mine.

In the next 8 to 12 months the two companies will partner together for all the required permitting, engineering, portal construction, drilling, bulk sampling, and metallurgical testing.

The partnership will target the high grade, steeply plunging gold mineralized shoots that were discovered during exploratory drilling.

A resource estimate for the Kubi Mine Project was conducted in December 2010 by SEMS Exploration Services and showed indicated resources of 121,000 ounces. The company is currently performing an updated resource estimate.

The terms of the deal stipulate that both companies will finalize and sign the agreement within 30 days when Asante will issue Goknet 2 million shares and fund the joint venture with 2 million dollars within 6 months in exchange for 50% of the ownership. Asante will provide an additional $13 million over the next two years.

Once Asante has earned its 50%, the company will have the option to increase its share to 75% for one year by issuing Goknet another 10 million shares and then for another 5 million shares will be able to move to complete ownership of the project, minus a smelter royalty for Goknet.

Asante has calculated that there has already been more than $30 million already spent on exploration and development of the Kubi project but the company plans to immediately begin securing funding for the initial project financing.