Altan Rio Minerals Limited announced the Company has entered into an option agreement to acquire Hakes Find gold project, located 10km from the Southern Cross township within the Yilgarn Mineral Field, Western Australia. The Hakes Find tenement area (P77/4607) covers 1.7km2 and lies within the central portion of the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt, a prolific gold producing region responsible for well in excess of 12 million ounces. The tenement area can be directly accessed by the well-graded Southern Cross Marvel Loch Road.

Historical exploration1. Numerous old workings and prospecting pits are scattered throughout the tenement area, accruing since gold was first discovered within the Southern Cross district in the 1880's. A small historical mining operation - Hakes Find - lies within the tenement area and was subject to underground workings down to the water table at 30 metres depth. Subsequently a small open cut excavation was completed over the old underground mine.

Since the 1960's, several drill programs have been conducted across the tenement area by previous owners. The most recent drilling campaigns were conducted in the 1990's by then-owner Finders Gold NL mainly at Hakes Find, which they called their Devlin's Reward prospect. Based on results from their drilling programs, Finders Gold NL estimated a non-JORC compliant mineral resource for Hakes Find in 1995.

According to Finders Gold NL, a more coherent central zone was interpreted to hold better potential for eventual economic exploitation with preliminary scoping work suggesting a lower waste to ore stripping ratio compared to the entire gold deposit. Results of metallurgical test work undertaken by Finders Gold NL on drill samples from the Hakes Find deposit indicated sulphide mineralisation may be amenable to processing through a conventional CIP/CIL treatment plant. Recent work.