Canarc Resources CCM. T apres plusieurs annees d'attente peut
enfin continuer a explorer la propriete Benzdorp au Suriname
Canarc Resource Corp - News Release
Canarc amends agreement on Surinamese ground
Canarc Resource Corp CCM
Shares issued 43,834,801 Sep 3 2002 close $ 0.40
Tuesday September 3 2002 News Release
Mr. Bradford Cooke reports
CANARC AND GRASSALCO SIGN AMENDING AGREEMENT TO FACILITATE DE ...
Canarc Resource and its partner, Grassalco, have signed an amending agreement to facilitate renewed exploration and development work on the Benzdorp gold project in Suriname.
Canarc first entered into an option agreement regarding the Benzdorp property with Grassalco, the state mining company of Suriname, in April, 1996. All work on the project was halted in November, 1997, when Canarc failed to receive its title rights to Benzdorp from Grassalco.
Over the past year, the two companies have worked diligently to resolve the outstanding title and contract issues. This amending agreement reflects the new realities of the gold markets since 1996, significantly reducing Canarc's schedule of cash payments, adding several years to the exploration and development schedule, and securing Canarc's ownership rights to Benzdorp.
The new amending agreement allows Canarc to earn up to a 100-per-cent operating interest in Benzdorp by spending $3-million (U.S.) on exploration, making $300,000 (U.S.) in cash payments and delivering a positive feasibility study. Grassalco retains the rights to small scale placer mining and a net revenue interest, either a floating net smelter return of 1.5 per cent to 6 per cent based on the price of gold or a 20-per-cent net profits share after Canarc recovers all of its capital investment with interest.
At 1,380 square kilometres, Benzdorp is one of the largest mineral properties in the country. The Benzdorp property is also the most prolific gold producing region in all of Suriname, having produced over one million ounces of gold historically, including 500,000 ounces from bucket line dredging and 500,000 ounces by porknocking (small scale hydraulic mining) of the extensive, gold rich alluvial placer deposits.
From 1996 to 1997, Canarc spent $2-million (U.S.) exploring the easternmost 5 per cent of the property, and discovered several large and/or high-grade gold prospects within a semi-continuous, gold mineralized belt 20 km long. Virtually every creek draining this gold mineralized belt has been mined for gold. Canarc has now confirmed 12 gold soil anomalies, indicating the presence of multiple large lode gold source areas within volcanic, sedimentary and intrusive rocks of the favourable Guyana Shield greenstone belt.
Follow-up deep augering in four gold prospect areas has confirmed large gold mineralized zones now ready for trenching and drilling. The first target, JQA, averages almost one gram per tonne gold over a 750-metre-long by 250-metre-wide area, open in all directions, based on 160 deep auger holes (10 metres deep on average) and two long bulldozer trenches which returned 1.2 gpt over 62 metres and 0.80 gpt over 78 metres, open in all directions.
Geological mapping confirms that the JQA zone consists of intense quartz veins and stockworks in a diorite intrusion, indicating a "gold porphyry" style of mineralization. The diorite intrusion is at least one kilometre wide by one kilometre long and appears to be mineralized throughout. The exploration target for JQA is a gold porphyry deposit of several hundred million tons grading 1.0 gpt.
Bulldozer trenching in the JQA zone one kilometre south of the JQA anomaly has also confirmed strong gold mineralization in saprolite. Trench JQS-1 (trending east-west) recently returned 2.68 gpt over a 19-metre width along the eastern edge of the JQS zone.
Another 700 metres west of the JQA zone, across Pointu Creek, deep auger results in the JQW zone have identified gold mineralization and grades in diorite similar to the JQA zone. Whether the JQW mineralization is a separate body or simply a western extension of the JQA zone can only be tested by diamond drilling, as the intervening ground is covered by creek gravels.
Recent deep augering at the JQB target 1.5 kilometres southeast of JQA has intersected very high-grade, shear zone gold mineralization in quartz veins. One two-metre interval assayed 788 gpt (duplicated by repeat assays), followed by two metres grading 38 gpt in the next interval. Another hole bottomed in two metres running 55 gpt gold and several holes returned two-metre intervals exceeding five grams per tonne. Clearly, the potential for high-grade shear zones is good but has not yet been systematically evaluated.
The top 60 metres of gold mineralization at JQA should be soft saprolite ore that need not be drilled, blasted or crushed and should have a very low strip ratio, thereby resulting in low operating costs. Perhaps the best example of this type of gold mine is the Brasilia mine of Rio Tinto and TVX Newmont in Brazil. The deposit is very large (320 million tonnes) but low grade (0.43 gpt), yet cash operating costs were only $191 (U.S.) per ounce in 2001.
Canarc now plans to conduct a $100,000 (U.S.) grid-trenching program on the JQ gold prospects over the next three months in order to better define targets for drilling. An aggressive drill program is planned to start early next year using Canarc's own Longyear 38 diamond drill currently located in Suriname.
Suriname has new mining legislation pending to attract foreign investors into the mining sector. Some attractive features of the new policy include a 35-per-cent tax rate, 2-1/4-per-cent NSR royalty, minimal import duties, full repatriation of capital and profits, and an accelerated depreciation rate. As well, the country has a mineral agreement with Cambior to start developing the Gros Rosebel gold mine late this year.
(c) Copyright 2002 Canjex Publishing Ltd. stockwatch.com
old url (better for printing) |
