International Platinum still halted — Anxious investors

The shares of International Platinum Corp. (TSE, NASDAQ) remain barred from trading as the company and its anxious investors await the results of an independent investigation launched by the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Neil Winchester, the TSE’s Manager of Market Surveillance, said the TSE had received the samples from International Platinum’s Arizona property. “They are at an assay lab in Canada now,” he said. He could not say when the results might be made public, although he tried to reassure shareholders, saying the TSE was moving as quickly as possible.

More than two weeks ago, the TSE imposed a trading ban on the stock after International Platinum (IPC) reported rich gold and platinum values from its Arizona property. The values from a regional sampling program ranged from 0.159 to 0.229 oz. gold per ton, 0.179 to 0.230 oz. platinum and 0.053 to 0.084 oz. palladium.

In addition, the company’s consultant, Gregory Iseman of Iseman Consulting, a Henderson, Nev. company, produced two bars from samples on the IPC property. The bars reportedly contained 0.247 oz. gold, 1.086 oz. silver, 0.351 oz. platinum and 0.123 oz. palladium per ton.

After learning about IPC’s precious metal values, the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources (ADMMR) conducted its own assay verification. As reported last week, its fire assay results fell far short of IPC’s values. For the record, the following is the complete text of the report from the ADMMR’s assay of five samples taken from the La Paz Cty. property in Arizona. The report was prepared by Nyal J. Niemuth, an ADMMR engineer. “The purpose of this visit was to take samples to determine whether the results recently reported by International Platinum could be confirmed. “Geology: Quaternary alluvium covers the BRX claim area (IPC’s Arizona property). Nearest rock outcrops are approximately one third mile to the southeast. There, both fresh and weathered, tertiary, welded, crystal-rich, vitric tuff occurs. Weathering of this tuff probably contributes the clay that is abundant in the alluvium. Gravels of varying lithologies locally mantle the surface in the northern portion of the sampled area. The gravels are commonly quartz and coarse-grained granite. They may or may not be coated with desert varnish.

“Samples: Samples were delivered to, and analyzed by, Jim Weatherby, a well-reputed Arizona-registered assayer, according to standard fire assay methods.

“BRX-1: Nil oz./ton gold, less than 0.1 oz./ton silver, no indication of any Platinum-Group Metals (PGMs). Located 100 ft. north of the quarter corner of sections 35 and 2 and 50 ft. south of an unidentified unfilled test pit. A 2-ft. vertical sample was taken, all reddish brown soil of the B horizon. The caliche content increases in the lower 6 inches of the sample. Surface has minor covering of minus 1/4 inch grains typically white quartz. “BRX-2: Nil oz./ton gold, less than 0.1 oz./ton silver, no indication of any PGMs. Located 150 ft. north of the quarter corner of sections 35 and 2 in an unidentified pit about 10 ft.X 10 ft. A 2.5-ft. vertical sample was taken. Sample description is as above except caliche increases in lower foot of sample. Spoil pile contained occasional 1-inch pieces of quartz that showed no other visible mineralization.

“BRX-3: Nil oz./ton gold, less than 0.1 oz./ton silver, no indication of any PGMs. Located 15 ft. north of BR23D. A 2-ft. vertical sample was taken. Soil description as previously described in BRX-1. Nothing coarser than sand at surface. This location was reported by International Platinum as containing, in the interval 0-5ft., 0.276 oz./ton gold and 0.449 oz./ton PGM. “BRX-4: Nil oz./ton gold, less than 0.1 oz./ton silver, no indication of any PGMs. Located 10 ft. west of BR22D. Sample taken mostly from top 6 inches of soil to reflect any eolian enrichment. This location was reported by International Platinum as containing, in the interval 0-5 ft., 0.298 oz./ton gold and 0.283 oz./ton PGMs.

“BRX-5: Nil oz./ton gold, less than 0.1 oz./ton silver, no indication of any PGMs. A grab sample taken north of samples BRX-3 and BRX-4 over a 250-sq.-ft. area. Material sampled consisted of surface gravels and near-surface soil. The gravels were as described in the geology section.”

The request by the Arizona Department of Mines for fire-assay verification came after IPC company officials met with ADMMR officials March 28 to review the assay report written by Iseman.

The Arizona agency had learned that in 1992, the Arizona State Board of Technical Registration had investigated Iseman’s activities in the state. Arizona law requires that anyone conducting assay work in the state be registered with the Board of Technical Registration. The penalty is a maximum $10,000 fine. At the time, Iseman was working in the state but was not registered with the state board.

According to Board investigator Marvin Shafer, Iseman was asked to stop his activities in Arizona. “He moved out of the state, so we closed the case,” Shafer told The Northern Miner. “He is not registered with us now,” Shafer added.

Iseman, who spoke with The Northern Miner in a telephone interview from Arizona April 4, said his current work with IPC is run mostly out of his Nevada lab. (Like most other states, Nevada does not require certification or registration. However, the state legislature is currently considering some form of certification or registration.)

“Most of the work is done here (in Arizona),” he said. “But the final work is done in Nevada.” He then added that “officially everything is done in Nevada.” Of the controversy generated by IPC’s project, Iseman said: “This happens anytime you get into this area with a platinum-group metal deposit…. You’re going to have a tremendous amount of opposition.”

For the IPC project, Iseman used the services of Global Ventures, of Gilbert, Ariz., to conduct some assays. Global Ventures is operated by Russell H. Twiford.

A confidential technical report on IPC’s Arizona project sent to The Northern Miner by IPC President Lee Furlong notes that the “use of a standard fire assay to make precious metal determinations on the BRX samples has been an elusive process. Large assay labs, due to a `cookbook’ procedure and the sheer number of samples they report on yearly, cannot tailor their processes to each individual sample. Therein lies the roadblock we had reached until now.”

IPC’s consultants, the report continues, “personalize” the fire assay by the use of a pretreatment on the BRX mineralization. Such a procedure applied to a bulk composite from a backhoe pit dug to nearly 10 ft. and “replicated five times using separate splits from the same sample” returned gold values ranging from 0.10 to 0.12 oz. per ton, the report notes. No mention was made of platinum values in this section of the report.

However, the IPC report includes a copy of the results from X-Ray Diffraction Analysis (XRD) conducted by Rogers Research & Analysis Co. of Salt Lake City, Utah. (XRD normally reveals the mineralogical content of a sample.) It lists several of the larger quantities of minerals (silicon dioxide, 43.08%; calcium carbonate, 26.15%; albite, 4.65%; chalcopyrite, 0.70%; and so on.)

As well, using XRD, Rogers Research President Clair W. Rogers reported his analysis quantified the “noble metals compounds” (such as free gold and the platinum-group sulphides in the minus 270 mesh screen test fraction) as 0.048% or 14.04 oz. per ton. This 0.048% quantity of noble metals included 0.18 oz. gold per ton, 2.36 oz. per ton petzite and 1.91 oz. per ton hessite, the report notes. The latter two minerals are tellurides which, according to Furlong, inhibit the use of traditional fire assay techniques (see TNM, April 11/94).