News release: Rights to Casa Berardi exploration portfolio acquired
Tue 16 Jun 98 News Release
Mr. Robert Blakestad reports
International Taurus Resources has signed an agreement with Cyprus Canada,
a wholly owned subsidiary of Cyprus Amax Minerals Company regarding the
rights to Cyprus' entire Casa Berardi exploration portfolio in the province
of Quebec, Canada. International Taurus can earn a 100 per cent interest in
Cyprus' share in the projects by paying $750,000 (U.S.) and delivering
1,250,000 shares of Taurus stock over a three year period. The initial
payment will be $50,000 (U.S.) and 250,000 shares of stock. Cyprus retains
a 51 per cent back-in right to the current property base.
The Cyprus portfolio includes 2,492 claims comprising 20 properties, within
the Casa Berardi sector of the Abitibi greenstone belt. The Abitibi belt is
one of the most prolific gold and base metal environments in the world,
with more than 150 million ounces of gold production, and more than 500
million tons of high grade copper zinc production. In addition,
International Taurus will acquire Cyprus' interest in the Casa Berardi
airborne survey, a $1.5-million (Canadian) - 80,000 line kilometre, ultra
high resolution helicopter survey held jointly with Fairstar Exploration.
Work by many companies over the past 20 years has shown that the Casa
Berardi area is geologically similar to the southern half of the Abitibi
belt, where most of the past gold and base metal production was derived.
The southern sector has abundant outcrop, and most deposits were discovered
by basic prospecting. In contrast, the Casa Berardi belt is entirely
overburden covered, and the only way to evaluate the exploration potential
is through remote geophysics. With this agreement, International Taurus
joins Cyprus and Fairstar as the only organizations with access to this
unique high quality database.
Prior work by International Taurus management in its former roles as
explorationists with Cyprus, resulted in a number of gold discoveries
through the use of the survey, including the Fenelon A deposit, owned
approximately 70 per cent by Fairstar and 30 per cent by Cyprus. Fenelon
was the site of a positive pre-feasibility study by Fairstar in 1997 which
identified an indicated resource of 252,000 tonnes grading 14.2 g/t Au. The
study concluded that approximately half of the resource is favourable to
open-pit mining. Highlights of the exploration portfolio, in addition to
the airborne survey database, include:
Fenelon A discovery
Current 30 per cent Cyprus interest, Fairstar 70 per cent
Martiniere D discovery
Cyprus 100 per cent interest. New, previously unannounced discovery of
Detour mine type mineralization. The discovery hole, which returned 12.5
g/t Au over 2.5 metres has not been offset, and requires substantial
follow-up along the 5 kilometres of untested structure.
Northway deposit
Cyprus 75 per cent interest, Northway Exploration 25 per cent. Contains an
indicated resource of 18.2 million tonnes grading 1.48 g/t Au in Several
open-pitable zones. Initial metallurgy indicates that the higher grade RJ
zone (indicated resource of 243,000 tonnes grading 7.82 g/t Au), located on
strike from the Agnico Eagle Vezza deposit is the best target for
delineation of an economic resource.
Other land positions
The remaining land package covers numerous high quality targets over a
strike length of approximately 50km in the same geological environment as
Detour Lake, Fenelon A and Martiniere D.
Details on each of the key prospects will be provided by the company in
future news releases.
Financing for exploration on this new package will be provided through the
$750,000 flow-through component of the $5,500,000 financing announced in
Stockwatch on June 4, 1998.
Tony Hitchins and Bruce Jeffery have agreed to join International Taurus'
exploration team as exploration managers.
(c) Copyright 1998 Canjex Publishing Ltd. canada-stockwatch.com
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