Seabridge Gold (TSX: SEA) (NYSE: SA) has agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Slaughterhouse project in southern Wyoming from Orogen Royalties (TSXV: OGN). The deal adds an early stage iron oxide copper-gold target to a portfolio anchored by the KSM project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle.
Seabridge will pay US$300,000 in cash on closing, with up to US$2.55 million in further payments tied to milestones. Those include US$300,000 on completion of 10,000 metres of drilling, US$750,000 on publication of a mineral resource estimate, and US$1.5 million on the start of commercial production. The final payment will count as an advance against royalties.
Orogen keeps a 2.5% net smelter return royalty on the existing claims, which Seabridge can reduce by 0.5% for US$5 million. A further 0.5% to 1% royalty applies to any project Seabridge generates within a 2,400 square kilometre area of interest around the property.
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The package includes 163 US mining claims, along with Orogen’s geophysical survey results, geological mapping and sampling data. The claims cover a 12 kilometre mineralized trend hosting hematite-dominated targets, a style best known from South Australia’s Gawler Craton, which hosts Olympic Dam and Prominent Hill.
Southern Wyoming has produced copper and gold for more than a century, but no one has explored the region systematically using an IOCG deposit model. Exploration on site has been limited to date, with grab samples having returned up to 12 g/t gold and 7% copper. Select areas also carry elevated heavy rare earth elements.
Proud Peak is the main target defined so far. A density anomaly more than 2 kilometres long sits beneath high-level, iron-rich alteration there, and Orogen says its scale and tenor resemble the geophysical signature that led to the Prominent Hill discovery.
“Our approach to the Slaughterhouse Project will employ a novel concept that has never been tested in Wyoming with modern exploration thinking and tools,” said Seabridge Chair and CEO Rudi Fronk. “Although this is an early-stage project, we believe we have the potential to make a discovery that opens new possibilities for gold and critical metals exploration.”
Fronk added that new technologies and aggressive exploration could unlock mineral systems relatively quickly. Seabridge has not yet disclosed a work program or budget for the project. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.
Seabridge Gold last traded at $40.11 on the TSX.
