>> Look, it was a huge scam virtually from the get go! <<
I am new to this thread. but I came across this and thought it might be of some interest here.
MRA'S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE BUSANG PROPERTY
In January 1988 Graeme Chuck joined Westralian Resource Projects
Limited ("Westralian"), a listed
Australian company, as Exploration Manager. Westralian was headed by
Warren Beckwith, and had interests
in two Contracts of Work in Indonesia which had been signed in December
1987 ("4th Generation"). Both of
these COW's were located in East Kalimantan, one being a joint venture
company with two Indonesian
partners called PT. Westralian Atan Minerals ("WAM")
Prior to this time, Westralian's exploration was carried out by a small
team consisting of an English geologist,
an Australian logistics/field officer, and an Indonesian geologist
named Jonathan Nassey and a number of
Indonesion non-professional employees and contractors. Nassey was
dismissed by Westralian sometime in
1987 for unethical behavior. During late 1987 Westralian had
established a field camp in the WAM COW on
the Atan River and some limited regional stream sediment sampling and
reconnaissance work had been
completed.
In March of 1988 Westralian decided to engage consultants to carry out
the exploration work in both its East
Kalimantan COW's rather than to build its own exploration team, and M.
Rogers and Associates Pty Ltd of
Adelaide was awarded a contract. This company was chosen primarily
because it had a track record of
exploration in Indonesia. Its principal, Murray Rogers, and Senior
Geologist John Levings had both been
involved in exploration programs in Sumatra during recent years. John
Levings was appointed as Project
Geologist for both the Westralian COW's, reporting both to Murray
Rogers and to Graeme Chuck. Later in the
project Joe Ogierman, another M. Rogers and Associates geologist from
Australia, joined the field team.
During March 1988 John Levings and Graeme Chuck traveled to Balikpapan,
where Westralian had
established a small base for its projects, and visited the Atan site
for the purpose of planning the exploration
program. This trip involved a 12 hour speed boat ride up the Mahakam
and Kelincau Rivers from Samarinda
followed by a further 4 or 5 hour canoe trip to Westralian's camp.
Westralian had already identified several
areas within the WAM COW which showed potential based purely on
evidence of mineralization in the form of
current local alluvial mining operations. It seemed clear that the best
of these was in Block V of the COW,
where local miners' operations had been identified earlier by
Westralian geologists, but had not been
investigated in any detail.
John and Graeme visited this area, approximately 10 kilometers from the
Westralian camp which was at a
location known as Busang. Here we observed alluvial mining operations
which were clearly mining gold
shedding northwards off an elevated area which contained andesitic
intrusive rocks (the surrounding area
generally being underlain by "Kutai Basin" sediments), an intrusive
which was soon to be referred to as the
Busang (Intrusive) Complex. A brief inspection of the northern and
central parts of this intrusive revealed
altered and unaltered andesites, including some breccias, which,
together with the associated gold
mineralization evidenced by the alluvial workings, invited broad
comparisons with the geological environment
which hosts the Kelian gold deposit to the south-west.
As result of this field trip, it was decided by Chuck and Levings that
Westralian's exploration should
concentrate on an evaluation of the "Busang Prospect", as it was from
then on called, together with a
continued regional reconnaissance program, a strategy adopted by the
company. A new field camp was
constructed at Busang, and work commenced immediately under John
Leving's supervision, on evaluating
the prospect.
This work commenced with tape and compass surveying of the drainage,
drainage sampling and
reconnaissance mapping, followed by a ridge and spur survey and rock
sampling and mapping program.
Based on the results of this sampling a "target zone of interest" was
defined which extended approximately
2.5 kilometers from the area of alluvial gold mining southward down the
eastern boundary of Block V of the
COW. Gold assays from rocks sampled during this phase of the program
included values of 13.8, 8.9,6.6,
24.7,13.9 & 27.3 grams per tonne in outcrop and 7.4, 4.6 & 4.0 grams
per tonne in float. The highest grade
samples were concentrated in the northern part of the area (later to be
known as the "Central Zone" of Bre-X).
Gold analyses were performed by Indo Assay Laboratories (IAC) in
Balikpapan by fire assay technique.
A small number of float and outcrop rock samples were collected from
the area to the east of the Westralian
Atan CCVV boundary in a CCW controlled by an Australian company called
Magnum Minerals. This area is
understood to include part of the "South East Zone" of Bre-X. Gold
values in this area were overall lower than
in the Westralian area.
From the ridge and spur sampling and mapping results a grid was
established by tape and compass
surveying over what was considered to be the main target zone of the
intrusive contained within Block V. This
grid was approximately 630 by 700 metres in area, consisting of
north-south lines spaced at 30 metres with
samples collected at 20 metres.
Auger soil sampling was conducted over this zone, with samples being
assayed for gold at IAL by fire assay
and selected base metals and silver by AAS techniques. This work
defined a series of gold anomalies defined
by 1 and 0.5 ppm Au levels which tended to be elongate in an east to
northeast directon.
During the latter part of 1988, these gold anomalies were further
investigated by 14 hand-dug trenches. These
trenches were channel sampled and the samples fire assayed for gold at
IAL. The results were very
encouraging and included the following intersections:
Trench 1
20 metres
@ 1.51 g/t Au
Trench 2
14 metres
@ 2.24 g/t Au
Trench 5
14 metres
@ 1.18 g/t Au
Trench 6
12 metres
@ 12.34 g/t Au
Trench 7
6 metres
@ 15.2 g/t Au
Trench 8
46 metres
@ 1.9 g/t Au
Trench 12
7 metres
@ 2.21 g/t Au
Trench 13
2 metres
@ 13.7 g/t Au
Trench 14
4 metres
@ 2.92 g/t Au
These Intersections were reported by Westralian in its Annual Report
for 1988, and by Montaguu Gold NL,
another Australian public company in the Beckwith stable which had
farmed-in to the Atan COW by taking
over funding from Westralian. Our involvement with the project
continued under this arrangement as before,
with Graeme Chuck as Exploration Manager for Montague and M. Rogers and
Associates as contractor to the
project. In late 1988, Montague especially strongly promoted the Busang
prospect in Australia based on the
trench results.
In early 1989 Montague decided to continue its exploration program in
the WAM COW, again concentrating on
an evaluation of the Busang prospect, which was Montague's prime
exploration project at this time and one
for which the company had high hopes of making a significant discovery.
A program of diamond drilling was
planned at Busang with the objective of testing below the trench
intersections. A budget of US$S600,000 was
approved for the 1989 exploration program for the WAM COW and the same
management and field teams as
1988 supervised and conducted the work.
The drilling program commenced in April 1989 under the supervision of
John Levings. Mintech, the leading
drilling contractor in Indonesia at that time, was contracted to do the
drilling, and a Longyear 38 drilling rig was
mobilized to site. A total of 19 drill holes were completed during the
program for a total of approximately 1,487
metres. Half-core samples were assayed at IAL. During the drilling
program the project was visited by
Graeme Chuck and Murray Rogers on several occasions, the latter with a
representative of Homestake who
was visiting to evaluate the prospect for a possible farm-in (which did
not get past the field visit).
All but two of the drill holes intersected zones of gold
mineralization, which in general, was represented by
drill intersections of less than 3 metres in length and 1 to 3 g/t in
grade. The best intersections included the
following:
BUD-1
51-56 metres
5 metres @ 4.29 g/t
Au
BUD-2
105-110.8 metres
5.8 metres @ 1.15
g/t Au
BUD-3
58-59 metres
1 metre @ 6.82 g/t
Au
62-65 metres
3 metres @ 1.72 g/t
Au
BUD-4
41-48 metres
7 metres @ 2.05 g/t
Au
BUD-10
32-38 metres
6 metres @ 2.68 g/t
Au
BUD-12
88-92 metres
4 metres @ 1.40 g/t
Au
BUD16
35-40 metres
5 metres @ 1.01 g/t
Au
BUD-18
78-82 metres
4 metres @ 3.37 g/t
Au
Sulphide mineralization in these drill cores was hosted by variably
propylitic and argillic altered porphyritic
andesite and breccias. Breccias were clast dominant and polymict
(andesite and sediment) with interstitial
carbonate pyrite, sphalerite and galena and of undoubted hydrothermal
origin. Gold mineralization was
associated with quartz-carbonate- sulphide stockwork veinlets and
sulphide-mineralized breccia in-fills.
Native gold in grains up to 0.5 mm across was observed in sulphide
veinlets.
After the completion of the drilling program (June 1989)
Montague/Westralian attempted to interest other
companies in the Busang prospect in the hope that a partner could be
attracted to farm-in and take over
funding of both of the Westralian COWs. Graeme Chuck produced
information memoranda on both COWs
and all major companies operating in Indonesia at the time as well as
other Australian and foreign exploration
companies were contacted. Late in 1989 John Levings and Graeme Chuck
accompanied geologists from
CRA, Ingold and BHP to the Busang prospect for the purpose of a field
inspection. During this trip these
company representatives inspected all core (half-core) from the 19
drill holes and walked over the main
prospect area.
No joint venture partner was attracted to either of the COWs, and both
projects were "shut down" at the end of
1989. M.Rogers & Associates at that time were engaged by Homestake to
underlake an exploration program
on the Buduk property in West Kalimantan, and John Levings and Joe
Ogierman moved to that project.
Graeme Chuck resigned from the Westralian/Montague group in January
1990, but was retained by Montague
as project manager by an exploration program in Montague's COW adjacent
to Freeport in Irian Jaya. John
Levings joined Graeme for this project in early 1990 (as a consultant
to Montague), and later that year John,
Graeme and Murray formed MRA Consultants Limited for the purpose of
continuing consulting in Indonesia
and elsewhere. Later an Indonesian company (PT Minerlindo Rejeki Alam
or"PT MRA") was formed as an
operating company for MRA's Indonesian work.
Graeme Chuck
John Levings
Murray Rogers
May 1997
MRA is now working on Yukon Golds property in Indo and having good results. BTW, I do not own this company presently, but do own another company with the same management as YKN.V , so I follow it.
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