General Minerals in Oz

Denver — Canadian-domiciled and American-based General Minerals (GNM-T) is learning to explore with an Australian accent.

The transition isn’t as difficult as it sounds, as one of the company’s new board members from Perth-based Ranger Minerals, which recently acquired controlling interest in the company, hails from Canada. Nevertheless, the junior is beginning a new round of exploration with the help of its new majority owner.

Ranger first became interested in the company in late November 2000, taking an initial 19.8% stake in the Denver-based junior through a non-brokered private placement of 4.5 million shares at 28 each. Originally, the Aussie came looking at General Minerals’ individual properties for possible joint ventures, says company spokesman Richard Doran. After a bit, Ranger decided that what it wanted was a piece of the whole company, not just one property. Ranger came back in December for another non-brokered private placement for an additional 15 million shares at the same price per share, boosting its stake in General Minerals to 51.6%. Ranger also gets to appoint two new members to the junior’s board of directors. General Minerals’ shareholders and the Toronto Stock Exchange have since approved the transactions.

Now flush with Aussie cash (albeit in U.S. dollars), General Minerals is undertaking a renewed program of exploration at two main properties.

At the Escalones porphyry target, southeast of Santiago, Chile, General Minerals plans to drill two deep core holes to test for potential porphyry mineralization. Previous work focused on magnetite skarn mineralization around the edges of the intrusion. In all, General Minerals has completed 23 drill holes (10,159 metres) at the property since late 1998. Of these holes, 14 were completed under a joint venture with Asarco, which was terminated when the copper producer was taken over by Grupo Mexico in late 1999.

At its other major project, the Productora copper project, in north-central Chile, General Minerals will sink 20 reverse-circulation (RC) holes (5,000 metres). The targets were generated from new self-potential and magnetic surveys. To date, the company has completed 19 RC holes at Productora, totalling 4,876 metres.

After finishing up at its properties in Chile, General Minerals will move northwest to Bolivia. At the Atocha silver property, the company plans to carry out further ground reconnaissance, drilling and possible tunneling.

Farther afield, at the 71%-held Towerbeck gold project in northern China, an exploration program is scheduled to commence in May or June. Drilling and trenching will be the order of the day.

General Minerals plans more metallurgical tests at the Vizcachitas copper property in Chile. Recent work has concentrated on bio-leaching of lower-grade ores, the results of which should be available soon. Vizcachitas contains a measured, indicated and inferred resource of 283 million tonnes grading 0.6% copper, based on 67 drill holes. The feasibility study suggested that the US$276-million project is capable of producing copper at an average total cost of US60 per lb.