VICTORIA (Commodity Online):Erin Ventures Inc (TSX-Venture: EV) reportedt that it has entered into an agreement to purchase majority control of the assets of the Santa Rosa Gold Mine in Panama in associaiton with Pageland Minerals Ltd. Under the terms of agreement, Erin will retain 75% interest while Pageland will retain undivided 25% stake in the mine. The total consideration for the acquisition is US $1,550,000 of which a down payment of US $75,000 has been paid to Canazas Mining, a Panamanian Corporation comprised of former workers at the Santa Rosa Mine.

The Santa Rosa Mine was opened for commercial production by Greenstone Resources Ltd. in 1996 and operated through 1998. Gold production at Santa Rosa during this period totaled 109,002 ounces at an average cash operating cost of approximately US$285 per ounce. Greenstone's production facilities were designed to operate at a capacity of 60,000 ounces per year using standard open pit mining methods and heap leach processing methods.

A combination of low gold prices, a substantial debt load, and multiple underperforming projects, resulted in the orderly shutdown of the Santa Rosa Mine early in 1999 and the eventual bankruptcy of Greenstone. At shutdown, Greenstone calculated the remaining resource in place at Santa Rosa to be in excess of 900,000 ounces of gold at a grade averaging approximately 1.3 grams per tonne, using a gold price of $350 per ounce.

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Canazas will receive the 10% of the net profits of the operations of Santa Rosa Mine. Net profits are defined as gross revenues less direct and indirect operating, recovery, mining and smelting costs, general and administrative expenses, interest, taxes and royalties and all other expenses relating to operating of Santa Rosa Mine.

Erin has agreed to transfer title to the land back to Canazas when mining operations are complete.Erin intends to use a due diligence period to advance the project to a NI-43-101 compliant resource, and to develop plans to bring the project back into production, building on Greenstone's historic production.

Description of Property - Santa Rosa Mine
The Santa Rosa gold deposit is located near the village of Canazas in Veraguas Province, Panama, approximately 300 kilometres southwest of Panama City. Access to the site is via paved road from the paved Pan American Highway. These roads are suitable for the transportation of major project components. Canazas itself is 15 kilometres north of the Pan American Highway and 300 kilometres southwest of Panama City. The Santa Rosa project (the "Santa Rosa Mine") has two components: the Santa Rosa deposit and the Alto de la Mina ("ADLM") deposit. Project feasibility was completed in October 1993 for gold production using heap leach methods on the ore produced by open pit mining methods. Construction of the project occurred during 1994 and 1995. Commercial production at Santa Rosa was achieved in the second quarter of 1996.

The mine's site elevation varies from 175 metres to 300 metres above sea level, and the topography is composed of rolling hills. The climate is tropical with almost 70% of the annual 2,800 millimetres of rainfall occurring between September and November. The Santa Rosa Mine has been designed and constructed and modified to minimize the impact of this rainfall on operations.

Gold mineralization at the Santa Rosa Mine is associated with conjugate northeast trending structures and north-south trending extensional fractures within a complex of terrestrial and marine volcanics in an island arc depositional environment. The epithermal gold bearing fluids migrated through competent and impervious mafic agglomerates and lapilli tuffs along relatively narrow northeast trending conduit zones within multi-stage, banded, extensional, sheeted and generally north-south trending quartz veins. When the fluids reached overlying felsic tuffs and sediments, increased permeability and porosity within those units enabled the gold bearing fluids to "blossom" and permeate available wall rocks.

At the Santa Rosa Mine at least two permeable and porous zones have been pervasively mineralized. The ADLM deposit and the Santa Rosa D Zone deposit appear to represent an upper mineralized unit and the Santa Rosa deposit's A, B and C Zones (sometimes referred to collectively as the "Main Zone") of mineralization appear to represent a second, lower mineralized unit.

The upper and lower ore bodies were once discrete but contiguous and have been subsequently offset by multiple northwest trending strike-slip structures into the present configuration of deposits. (Courtesy: PRNewswire)