Tandem excited by Moss Lake property

They aren’t popping the champagne corks just yet, but executives at Tandem Resources remain quietly optimistic that the company is sitting on top of a major gold discovery.

After more than 12 months of drilling on Tandem’s 50% owned Moss Lake property, west of Thunder Bay, Ont., the company is becoming increasingly excited about the property’s potential.

During l986, Tandem spent $700,000 to finance drilling programs undertaken by partner Storimin Exploration.

“Based on our observations, there is a very close affinity to the gold values in the pumice, tuff lithology on the Hemlo gold field,” said project geologist Alexander Po.

A 40,000-ft drilling program in l986 has already indicated the possibility of over 800,000 tons grading about 0.20 oz gold per ton in a 1,400 ft zone whi ch is open both along strike and at depth. Within two weeks, a $3-million underground drilling program will begin and ore will be extracted for testing once the 4,000-ft level is reached.

A 61 ft intersection, that averaged 0.17 oz gold per ton, including a 41-ft section running 0.233 oz has recently indicated an important new parallel zone.

“We can show continuity and our drilling patterns are designed to trace the continuity and correlation of what we have found already,” Mr Po told The Northern Miner.

“We have identified a continuous target, and we are predicting where and how we are going to hit. You can’t say the same about many projects,” he said.

While Mr Po claims it’s too early to predict when the property will be brought into full production, President Stanley Hawkins was in an optimistic mood at the company’s recent annual meeting.

“We are at the end of a spectacular year when the company made all the right moves at the right time,” said Mr Hawkins.

“We built the company up from almost nothing through acquisitions and we think we can do better next year.”

In addition to the Moss Lake property, Tandem’s other interests include a 30% stake in North American Rare Metals (NAR) which owns 50% of a number of properties in the Casa Berardi area of Northwestern Quebec. The area includes the Vezza Twp. property south of Mattagami Lake.

NAR and partner Dundee- Palliser Resources have discovered a gold-bearing 2,000-ft zone with widths of 6 ft to 36 ft averaging 0.10 to 0.32 oz.

A $2-million 50,000 ft diamond drilling began recently on the property to probe the zone to depth and along the strike.

Tandem also holds 160,000 shares of La Fosse Platinum Group Inc. which is involved in a platinum prospecting venture in the Retty Lake, north of Schefferville, Que. La Fosse is expected to go public soon at $5 a share.

On its own, Tandem holds a concession adjoining a strike on the north side of La Fosse’s discovery concession.

To finance the company’s Canadian exploration expenses during l987, Tandem is planning a private placement of $1 million in common shares on a flow-through basis to MVP Exploration (1987) and Co., Ltd. Partnership. As part of the agreement, Tandem has agreed to issue common shares at an issue price which is equal to 125% of the average closing market price on the Vancouver and Montreal stock exchanges 20 days previously.

The company has also arranged a private placement of $1 million, on a flow-though basis, of up to 318,878 common shares of the company to CMP (l987) Resource Partnership and Co., Ltd. at $1.568 per share and up to 308,452 common shares of the company to CMP (l987) (Quebec) Resource Partnership and Co., Ltd. at $1.62 per share. Tandem currently has 9.2 million shares outstanding.

Tandem shares were trading recently on the Vancouver Stock Exchange at $2.10. The company had $391,175 in working capital on Dec 31, l986, compared to $494,813 for the same period last year.