The similarities to Nevada-style sediment-hosted, bulktonnage gold deposits were compelling enough for
Terms of the agreement, which are rich by junior standards, include a purchase price of US$10 million, payable in US$4 million cash and US$6 million of Aquest convertible debentures, plus prepaid royalties of 5% of the recoverable metal value contained in the first 1 million tonnes of ore and 3% on the remaining reserve, payable in Aquest convertible debentures. Total payments are capped at US$25 million.
The agreement is subject to a due diligence period of nine months, during which time Aquest will attempt to verify what it believes is the potential for a multi-million-ounce gold deposit.
The Anabella project is accessible by paved road, 300 km northwest of Guatemala City, and consists of mining contracts with exploitation rights covering seven concessions totalling 265 ha. An application is pending for a further 245-ha extension. The private Guatemalan company has been mining high-grade antimony lenses within a sediment-hosted gold-bearing arsenopyrite system on an intermittent basis since 1969. A 275-tonne-per-day capacity flotation-gravity mill has produced antimony, antimony trioxide and, since 1992, gold-bearing arsenopyrite concentrates. The underground mine and mill are dormant, whereas a 6,000-tonne-per year smelter is continuing to produce antimony trioxide.
Robert Young, vice-president of special projects for
It is not the antimony component of the Anabella project in which Aquest is interested, however, but the gold. Aquest President Thomas Vehrs, a geologist with more than 20 years’ experience in South America, Mexico and the U.S., including Nevada, believes the geological setting bears similarities to a Carlin-style, sediment-hosted, bulk-tonnage gold deposit.
High-grade gold-antimony mineralization at Anabella is hosted in a package of Upper-Pennsylvanian-to-Permian-age carbonaceous shales, argillaceous siltstones and limestones. The sedimentary sequence is folded into northwesterly trending anticlines and synclines locally cut by faults.
The antimony mineralization occurs as stibnite in high-grade mantos and veins, and as disseminations.
Mapping and sampling by Aquest and Teck show a mineralized trend with gold, antimony and arsenic values extending over a strike length of 5 km. The refractory-style gold mineralization is found to be associated with disseminated arsenopyrite in carbonaceous siltstones and shales. Preliminary sampling of the limestones indicates that they do not to carry gold.
The underground antimony mining operations focus on two areas, Anabella and LC, which are separated by 1,000 metres of strike. The mine workings at Anabella are developed over numerous levels along a strike length of 350 metres and a horizontal width of 100-150 metres. The mineralization extends from surface to depths of at least 150 metres and remains open in all directions.
No systematic exploration for gold has been carried out, and assaying for gold has not been done on a comprehensive basis. Chip sampling along underground workings on the 1935, 1928 and 1911 levels has yielded:
- 2.5 grams gold per tonne over 20 metres;
- 5.1 grams over 25.6 metres;
- 4.6 grams over 16 metres;
- 7.9 grams over 11.2 metres;
- 5.5 grams over 14.9 metres;
- 2.4 grams over 17.5 metres;
- 4.7 grams over 11.8 metres;
- 5.2 grams over 10 metres; and
- 2.7 grams over 24 metres.
About 50 metres farther west, channel samples collected along the 1914 level ran as high as 24 grams and averaged 7 grams gold and 2.46% antimony over 65 metres. At the deeper, 1868 level, a drill hole averaged 5.1 grams gold over its entire length of 17.4 metres.
Surface sampling of outcrops in the portal area of the mine indicates that gold mineralization extends over a width of at least 100 metres, with values ranging up to 12.5 metres, including intervals of 5.7 grams over 9 metres, 2.4 grams over 28 metres, and 3.4 grams over 12 metres.
Geochemical sampling shows anomalous gold, antimony and arsenic in soils extending for another 1,500 metres east-southeast of the mine.
The eastern end of the second mine, LC, is 1,000 metres west-northwest of the Anabella mine. LC has been developed by 16 shafts and numerous declines along a strike length of 700 metres. High-grade antimony and gold mineralization occurs in moderately dipping mantos. Limited sampling in the shafts indicated narrow intervals of higher-grade mineralization, including:
- 14 grams gold and 0.28% antimony over 0.8 metre;
- 2.4 grams gold and 42.23% antimony over 2.3 metres;
- 14.9 grams gold and 9.65% antimony over 1.5 metres; and
- 15.5 grams gold and 1.03% antimony over 1.6 metres.
Vehrs thinks the gold and stibnite mineralization may have been deposited in two separate events. The gold and arsenic were introduced first, in a low-to-moderate temperature environment that led to a pervasive, widespread, stratigraphically controlled deposition. Later, as the system boiled, stibnite was deposited, in a much more controlled, less mobile event. Vehrs believes the Anabella setting may be conducive to the discovery of stacked mineralized zones.
Aquest hopes to finance a $2.5-3-million program of due diligence drilling to determine the extent and continuity of the gold mineralization. A 5,000-to-8,000-metre program of reverse-circulation drilling, starting in the heart of the Anabella zone, will begin in May.
Aquest is led by a seasoned group of mining professionals with extensive experience in the operating and financial end of the business. The directors and officers include: Chairman James O’Rourke, former chairman of Princeton Mining; Paul Saxton, former president and chief operating officer of Viceroy Resource; Rodney Shier, former chief financial officer for Rea Gold; William Robertson, former senior vice-president of Cominco; and Lawrence Barr.
Aquest has $400,000 cash on-hand and 13.1 million shares outstanding, or 19.2 million on a fully diluted basis.
Be the first to comment on "LATIN AMERICA — Aquest looks to Guatemala for Carlin-style targets — Proposed drilling would determine extent of gold mineralization"