MORE NEWS: Abacus Minerals Corporation: Letter of Intent
NOVEMBER 27, 1998
NewsWire: CCN
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--Abacus Minerals Corporation announces
it has signed a Letter of Intent with Snowfield Explorations Ltd.
"Snowfield" whereby Snowfield can earn a 50 percent interest in
three mineral claims (the "Properties") located in Santa Cruz,
Argentina.
To earn a 50 percent interest in the Cerro Moro, Cerro Negro and
Rio Oro properties, Snowfield will carry out US $3,750,000 in
exploration expenditures. Snowfield will also make cash payments
totaling CDN $570,000 and issue 600,000 common shares to Abacus
over the next four years. All exploration expenditures, cash
payments, and share issuances must be completed by September 15,
2002. In addition, Snowfield will issue 200,000 of its common
shares to Abacus upon commercial production on each of the
properties. Snowfield's first year option is to conduct US
$300,000 in exploration expenditures, issue 150,000 of its common
shares, and make CDN $45,000 in cash payments.
The Cerro Moro, Cerro Negro, and Rio Oro properties are a part of
an option agreement between Abacus Minerals Corporation and
Barrick Gold Corporation whereby Abacus is earning a 100 percent
interest in six exploration properties from Barrick. Abacus is in
the first year of its four year agreement with Barrick and has
spent over US $900,000 of the US $2,750,000 it must spend in
exploration. Once Abacus has vested, Barrick retains a 50 percent
"back-in" right by spending US $3,750,000 in ongoing exploration.
If Barrick elects not to "back-in", they will automatically
convert to a 3 percent Net Smelter Royalty. Snowfield will retain
a 25 percent interest in the Properties if Barrick elects to
"back-in" and 50 percent interest if it does not.
The properties are located in the Deseado Massif area of Santa
Cruz, Argentina. This area is underlain by Mesozoic age acid
volcanic rocks where high grade epithermal gold and silver
discoveries have been reported by several mining companies. An
example is Anglo American/ Perez Compac's Cerro Vanguardia mine
which is scheduled to begin full scale production in December
1998. Reserves at Cerro Vanguardia are reported at 3.8 million
ounces of gold and 35.0 million ounces of silver.
The Cerro Negro property is contiguous with the Cerro Vanguardia
property, located less than 10 kilometres from veining outlined at
Cerro Vanguardia. The Cerro Negro property covers an area of 1783
hectares underlain by favorable volcanic stratigraphy. A limited
evaluation of the property in 1997 by Abacus revealed locally
strong hydrothermal alteration including silicification and
argillization with jasperoidal and fine quartz veining. Rock and
soil sampling revealed anomalous trace element geochemistry
typical of epithermal systems.
The Cerro Moro property is located approximately 145 kilometres to
the northeast of Cerro Vanguardia. The Cerro Moro property is
1452 hectares and also covers favorable geology as well as a
prominent resistive circular hill which can be identified on
satellite images as a well defined strong clay response. A brief
field examination of this area by Abacus revealed botryoidal
layered siliceous rocks and felsic tuffs. Rock samples returned
anomalous trace element geochemistry typical of epithermal
systems. Yamana's Martinetas property is located approximately 50
kilometres to the northwest of the Cerro Moro property. Reverse
Circulation drill results reported by Yamana on Martinetas include
132 meters grading 1.02 g/t gold.
The Rio Oro property is located along the border with Chile in the
far western part of the Deseado Massif. This property covers
Mesozoic volcanic rocks as well as underlying Paleozoic
metasedimentary basement rocks and granodiorite to diorite
intrusive rocks. The target here is polymetallic shear hosted
mineralization in the metasediments as well as epithermal
mineralization. Shear hosted precious and base metal
mineralization occurs approximately 5 kilometres to the east of
the Rio Oro property at the Veta Linque showing. Samples
collected by Abacus at this shear returned up to 0.90 g/t gold,
546.4 g/t silver, 4.0 percent copper, 0.3 percent lead and 0.1
percent zinc. Government reports refer to values up to 3 to 10
g/t gold and 300 to 500 g/t silver from this area.
All three of the above properties represent prospective early
stage exploration projects. All three were staked on behalf of
Lac Minerals in the early 1990s, prior to the acquisition of most
of the other mineral properties in the region.
Several companies are also active in this area including Silver
Standard's Manetial Espejo project, Yamana's Bacon and Lejano
projects, Abacus' La Manchuria project, MIM/Newcrest's Cerro Negro
property and Minera Andes' El Pluma/ Cerro Saavedra project.
This agreement is subject to regulatory acceptance of the
Vancouver Stock Exchange and Barrick Gold Corporation.
ABACUS MINERALS CORPORATION
Steve L. Todoruk, P.Geo., President |
