I read this as saying AGD are interested in this acreage if it is mainly gold/silver near our existing Chile mine, but NOT if it is copper that is dominant. We are interested in precious metals, rather than copper.
Rather than owning an interest via Pampa, AGD gets direct control of the exploration involved in these leases, but would reduce its interest in favour of Pampa if exploration discovers mainly copper.
In this and earlier transactions AGD is spending a lot on getting access to precious metal acreage in North America (via Ensign), Chile and Argentina and will now spend its strong cash flow on exploration. The Board is ambitious to "get bigger" via exploration. We now need evidence of exploration success. Unlike Australian explorers AGD seems to only release exploration results in the quarterly, rather than release drilling results as they are received to maximise the share market impact.
The AGD share price certainly needs a boost. Early good results around Casposo, or the mooted deal with neighbours so Casposo can reopen have to be the first hope as we have the infrastructure to start producing quickly while silver prices are high. The Board seems to have gone cold on interests in working mines like Rawhide, where AGD does not have control, in favour of longer term grass routes exploration that we do control. The payoff will be down the track and depends on a good exploration manager and picking the right leases to explore (and luck). At current gold/silver prices we have the cash flow to fund exploration as is clear from the cash flow over the last 2 years shown in the last annual report.
