Mindoro Resources' Agata project results
Mindoro Resources Ltd MIO
Shares issued 16,305,539 Jun 14 close $0.17
Tue 15 Jun 99 News Release
Mr. Tony Climie reports
Mindoro Resources has completed its results from underground sampling of an
active high-grader gold mine (Assmicor mine) within Mindoro's Agata
project, Philippines. The mine is within the Lao Prospect, one of two
clusters of gold prospects on the project. It is operated by local miners
on a small scale and occurs along the mineralized contact zone of a
monzonite intrusive and ultramafic rocks. Abundant active and inactive gold
workings occur along this contact over a strike length of 400 metres. The
saprolite (soil) horizon developed over this contact zone was mined by
thousands of local miners during the 1980s.
Local miners are now mining gold from a mixed oxide/sulphide zone to
shallow depths within the mine. Assmicor mine consists of a main shaft,
presently at 30 metres depth, with a series of short development drifts
extending from this. The miners are planning to abandon the operation soon
since their primitive mining techniques (hammer and chisel) cannot handle
the increasingly harder rock at depth, as well as water inflows.
Channel sampling of the mine by Mindoro was carried out in three phases.
The first, reported on May 13, 1998, returned an average of 4.5 grams per
tonne gold over the total 28 metres of workings developed at that time. The
majority of samples were collected from along the mined-out walls and do
not reflect the actual ore grade material mined.
The second sampling phase was carried out in November, 1998. Twenty channel
samples were collected. Results ranged from 0.17 g/t gold (over 2.1 metres)
to 26.8 g/t gold (over 2.3 metres), and averaged 5.5 g/t over a total of
57.7 metres. Once again, the majority of samples were from along the
mined-out walls, indicating mineralization extends outside the limits of
the small-scale mining operation. Phase one and two sampling combined to
give an average of 5.2 g/t gold over a total of 85.7 metres. All samples
were analyzed by McPhar Geoservices, Manila, using standard fire assay
procedures.
The third sampling phase was carried out in May, 1999, and was supervised
by Tony Climie and Dr. Gerhard Kirchner, a mining engineer and director of
Mindoro. Three underground channel samples from the working faces of the
mine and one representative sample from the mill feed were collected.
Samples were submitted to McPhar Geoservices for standard fire assays, as
well as to Intertek Testing Services (ITS-Bondar Clegg), Manila, for screen
fire assays, both as a check and to determine the amount of coarse gold
present. Sampled material consisted of strong quartz-pyrite
stockworked-monzonite with limonitic fractures containing visible gold.
Two, one-meter-wide channel samples from the north-working face of the mine
returned 20.11 g/t (closest to the contact) and 3.59 g/t gold, for an
average of 11.85 g/t gold over a true width of two metres (Intertek
results). The McPhar results were 15.80 g/t gold and 5.08 g/t gold
respectively, for an average of 10.44 g/t gold over the two metres. A
one-metre channel sample from the south face of the mine, the maximum width
presently exposed by mining, returned 16.32 g/t gold (Intertek) and 29.90
g/t gold (McPhar). Mineralization is open to the east (hanging wall) in
both cases. The mill feed sample returned 13.74 g/t gold (Intertek), or
10.30 g/t gold (McPhar). The screen assays indicate the coarse gold
component (greater than 150 mesh) ranges from 8.7 per cent to 54.3 per cent
of the total gold assay. Some of this coarse fraction gold is thought to be
of supergene origin. The extent of any potential enrichment is unknown at
this time.
The underground samples are considered encouraging and indicate
economically interesting grades occur over a true width in excess of two
metres along the favourable contact zone, which is known to extend for at
least 400 metres along strike. The Assmicor contact zone offers excellent
potential for establishing an early resource and initial exploration work
will be directed at this.
Of particular significance are three broad gold in soil anomalies (greater
than 50 parts per billion), totalling approximately 10 hectares, within
adjacent altered limestones (Limestone Target, previously reported May 13,
1998). Small-scale mining operations took place within these limestones and
gold was also recovered by panning of the soils. Extensive inactive
workings occur within one of these anomalies, where encouraging rock
channel values (up to 2.8 g/t gold over five metres, announced May 13,
1998) were obtained in pyritized limestone. This mineralization, and the
surrounding soil anomalies, are interpreted to reflect leakage from
higher-grade skarn or replacement gold mineralization associated with the
inferred intrusive body at depth. Exploration will be directed at testing
both the near-surface bulk-tonnage, as well as this deeper, higher-grade
potential.
Ron Avery, Mindoro's exploration manager, is presently on site supervising
detailed target definition in advance of drill testing of both the Assmicor
and Limestone Targets, planned to commence in July.
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