Foreign projects featured in Cordilleran Roundup

A mood of cautious optimism prevailed at the 14th Annual Cordilleran Geology and Exploration Roundup. Delegates expressed enthusiasm over the current bull market for junior resource stocks, but their optimism was tempered with an equal measure of concern over lacklustre gold prices.

More than 2,000 delegates and 157 exhibitors attended the 4-day event, held at the Hotel Vancouver. And the consensus gleaned from The Northern Miner was that investors still have strong interest in the resource sector.

Much of the investor interest is attributable to the spectacular success of such companies as Dia Met Minerals (DMM-T), Diamond Fields Resources and Arequipa Resources.

“There’s a lot more interest in speculative mining ventures after the recent discoveries by Dia Met and others,” said Douglas Eaton, a director of Expatriate Resources (EXR-V), who gave a presentation on the company’s Ice copper project in the Yukon. “Obviously everyone’s looking for the next big one.”

He added that he was impressed by the increased presence of major companies at this year’s roundup, which he sees as sign that investment in mineral exploration is at a healthy level.

Government figures tell the tale: Spending on mineral exploration in Canada has risen to a projected $945 million for 1996 from a 26-year low of $383 million in 1992. Accounting for the dramatic rise was the major discovery of diamonds at Lac de Gras in the Northwest Territores and of nickel at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador.

Notwithstanding those colossal domestic discoveries, it was international projects that dominated this year’s conference, as experts delivered well-attended talks on projects in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Central Asia and Africa.

The international theme is relected in the fact that, in 1996, Canadian juniors accounted for 15-20% of total worldwide exploration spending.

“Canadian companies are operating in countries we couldn’t spell a year ago,” said Jack Marr, vice-president of exploration for Agate Bay Resources (ABE-V). “It’s hard to see how [the exploration sector] could slow down, provided there is a bit of support for metal prices.”

However, low gold prices (US$343.40 at presstime), comined with uneven performances among some stocks, caused delegates to be “less euphoric” than in recent years, according to Stephen Quin, executive vice-president of Northern Orion Explorations (NNO-T). “Last year, gold was on its way to US$400 per oz. during the conference,” he pointed out.

But he added that projects featured in this year’s roundup are much more advanced than those highlighted in previous years. And even if investors are more cautious nowadays, Quin said, “good projects will attract money in good times and in bad.”

As is usual at mining conferences, delegates made a point of decrying government for failing to curb the preponderance of regulations through which exploration companies must wade in order to explore and develop properties.

Part of the problem, at least in British Columbia, is that mineral exploration falls under the province’s Forest Practices Code, said Christopher Drackenburg, director of research communications for the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines.

He said the Chamber of Mines is taking steps to persuade the government to release the mineral exploration industry from the Forest Practices Code and make it accountable to a mining code.