Guinea extends Hidalgo’s permits for Fifa project

Despite recent uncertainty in Guinea over foreign mining contracts, Hidalgo Mining International (HMIT-O) says the government has renewed permits on its Fifa land package for another two years.

The junior mining company, headquartered in Port Washington, New York, said today that management was leaving for the West African nation “to inspect mining equipment for operations to begin this season.”

The decision to renew the Fifa permit, which covers exploration, development and the recovery of gold and associated precious metals, comes after Guinean President Moussa Camara accused Russia’s Rusal earlier this month of shortchanging the government on a 2006 deal on the Friguia bauxite and alumina complex.

In March, the 45-year-old former army captain also warned Global Alumina (GLA.U-T, GBAMF-O) that he would rip up its contract with the state if the company did not provide a schedule of its activities.

The threats against Rusal and Global Alumina followed Camara’s detention of former mining ministers and an order – revoked several days later — to shut down AngloGold Ashanti‘s (AU-N, AGD-L), Siguiri mine after one of the gold major’s directors missed a meeting at a mining forum the military chief had convened.

Hidalgo’s Fifa land prospecting permit is about 65 km west of AngloGold’s Siguiri gold mine and about 88 km west of the town of Siguiri.

The company believes that a large resource of alluvial gold remains on the Fifa land prospecting permit and plans to examine its potential for alluvial, lateritic and primary gold deposits.

“Pits and a trench have been excavated to properly sample one of the veins located south of the village of Fifa,” the company states on its website. “The trench revealed that the vein is part of an extensive hydrothermal veining system similar to the one hosting some of the gold deposits at the nearby Siguiri gold mine.”

Sampling in this trench returned anomalous gold concentration in the altered wall rocks. The highest value obtained was 13.4 grams of gold per tonne over a 60-cm section of the trench.

Hidalgo believes that according to preliminary work and sampling pits in areas already mined by artisans, roughly 75% of the original gold-rich gravel “remains untouched and a substantial amount of gold could still be recovered from these previously mined fields.”

Between June 2002 and July 2007, Hidalgo kept a prospecting crew in the area to test the potential for economic gold deposits. Field work involved pitting, soil sampling and trenching, and was mainly undertaken to the west and south of Fifa village in the eastern area of the permit. During that time the company outlined four blocks where previous local mining activity had taken place: Kolen-Jima, Kele-Lolou, Siguiri-Sila and Kabine-Bee.

A preliminary prospecting program for alluvial gold deposits was carried out on the four blocks and a total of 28 prospecting pits in the alluvial deposits of the Bereko River were excavated.