Mindoro Reports Early Gold Resource Potential at Agata Project,
Philippines
Mindoro Resources Ltd MIO
Shares issued 13,613,039 Jun 18 close $0.15
Mon 21 Jun 99 Company Sponsored
NEWS RELEASE
June 15, 1999 - Edmonton, Alberta
MINDORO RESOURCES LTD.
MIO:ASE
EARLY GOLD RESOURCE POTENTIAL, AGATA PROJECT: PHILIPPINES
HIGHLIGHTS:
* High grade sample results indicate early gold resource potential for
Assmicor Target
* Drill evaluation of Assmicor and adjacent Limestone Targets scheduled
for July
Tony Climie, P.Geol., President of Mindoro Resources Ltd. ("Mindoro") is
pleased to announce 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 mineralised contact zone of a monzonite
intrusive and ultra-mafic 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 1980's.
Local miners are now mining gold from a mixed oxide/ulphide 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 (g/t) gold over the aggregate 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 (over 2.1 metres) to 26.8
g/t gold (over 2.3 metres), and averaged 5.5 g/t over an aggregate 57.7
metres. Once again, the majority of samples were from along the mined-out
walls, indicating mineralisation 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 an aggregate 85.7 metres. All samples were
analysed 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, P.Geol., and Dr. Gerhard Kirchner, P.Eng., 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, 1 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 2 metres (Intertek results).
The McPhar results were 15.80 and 5.08 g/t gold respectively, for an
average of 10.44 g/t gold over the 2 metres. A 1 meter 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).
Mineralisation 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% to 54.3% 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 very 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), aggregating 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 5 metres, announced May 13, 1998)
were obtained in pyritised limestone. This mineralisation, and the
surrounding soil anomalies, are interpreted to reflect leakage from higher
grade skarn or replacement gold mineralisation 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, P.Geo., 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.
Mindoro is a Canadian mineral exploration company focussing on gold and
gold-copper exploration in the Asia Pacific region and operates projects in
the Philippines and Indonesia.
For more information, contact:
Rodney Orr, P.Geo., Senior V.P.
or
Penny Gould, V.P. Corp. Development
Phone: (780) 413-8187
Fax: (780) 426-2716
E-mail: mailto:mindoro@mindoro.com
Website: mindoro.com
The Alberta Stock Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the
information contained herein.
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