Bluebird Mining Ventures (LSE:BMV) confirmed it has paid the £75,000 option fee tied to its deal to acquire El Alamo Resources, moving its Santa Teresa gold project in Baja California, Mexico into an active work programme.
The AIM-listed junior explorer said a review of historic technical data turned up a 2020 JORC Mineral Resource estimate, prepared by independent consultants Cube Consulting, reporting 369,000 tonnes grading 7.47 g/t gold for 88,600 ounces of contained gold at Santa Teresa.
That figure supersedes the 64,000-ounce estimate from a 2016 study by APEX Geoscience, which Bluebird had previously cited as the project's current resource.
Bluebird secured an exclusive 120-day option on Santa Teresa in September, with the deal structured around £75,000 in cash and £250,000 in shares due on completion, plus further consideration of up to £3m in total acquisition cost tied to independently verified resource growth through 250,000 oz, 500,000 oz and eventually 1m oz; the seller retains a 1% net smelter return royalty.
The 2020 resource model draws principally on 32 diamond drill holes totalling approximately 7,025 metres completed by Premier Gold Mines, within a wider district where more than 40 kilometres of modern and historic drilling has been recorded, including over 30,500 metres by Calais Resources.
Bluebird has appointed Ivan Duarte of Duarte Legal as Mexican counsel under a 90-day work programme to confirm the mineral-rights position, including the status of four Santa Teresa concessions that appear active, an unresolved historic transfer on the Victoria concession, and three cancelled AIVN concessions the company considers strategically important to the wider district.
"Project El Alamo is now moving into execution," said Sath Ganesarajah, chief executive of Bluebird.
"Santa Teresa already has a reported JORC Inferred Mineral Resource of 88,600 ounces at 7.47 grams per tonne gold, supported by modern drilling and independent technical work," he said, adding that the company intends to "let the evidence determine how much capital we deploy."
The move follows Bluebird's broader pivot away from direct mine ownership: the company disposed of its Gubong and Kochang gold projects in South Korea in September, retaining royalty exposure rather than development risk, while recasting itself around a three-pillar model of Bitcoin streaming, gold streaming and treasury accumulation.
Bluebird has published an updated Project El Alamo investor presentation, stating that only the 88,600-ounce inferred resource constitutes a current independently reported Mineral Resource, with all other scenarios described as illustrative rather than forecasts.
The company said its immediate geological objective is to determine whether the Santa Teresa resource can be expanded and whether other parts of the historic El Alamo Gold District, where gold mining dates back to 1888, warrant modern verification.