Vancouver — The takeover of AurionGold by
The Perth-based junior acquired two Philippine properties and an arrangement with Placer Dome Asia Pacific (PDAC) through its 2002 acquisition of Templar Resources. The arrangement calls for the subsidiary to offer Goldminco any projects of which it divests itself. The junior also gets carried through to development and is reimbursed for all its exploration costs on any joint-venture deal it contributes. The deal covers Southeast Asia, China, Australia and New Zealand.
With Placer Dome’s acquisition of AurionGold complete, the major found itself with several projects that failed to meet its criteria. Goldminco has elected to pick up the New Temora, Blayney and Goonumbla projects in the New South Wales Lachlan Fold Belt.
The Paleozoic orogenic belt is home to the Northparkes deposit (64 million tonnes grading 1.89% copper and 0.48 gram gold per tonne), held 80% by
The 1,020-sq.-km Temora project hosts the Mandamah copper-gold prospect, where previous drilling cut up to 0.5 gram gold and 0.4% copper over 206 metres, as well as 0.9 gram gold and 0.3% copper over 142 metres.
About 15 km southeast of the Cadia Hill and Ridgeway deposits lies the 550-sq.-km Blayney project, which is prospective for gold skarn and structurally controlled gold systems. The most advanced target here is Discovery Ridge, where a 1995 resource calculation indicated 2.4 million tonnes grading 1.5 grams gold.
Ten kilometres from Cadia Hill is the Ferndale prospect, where 9,466 metres of drilling returned up to 6 metres grading 2.1 grams gold and 0.4% copper, plus 68 metres averaging 0.18 gram gold and 0.3% copper.
The 506-sq.-km Goonumbla project covers the northern and southern ends of the volcanic belt, which hosts the Northparkes mine. Little exploration has been carried out there.
Earlier this year, Goldminco launched a 1,000-metre drill program over the high-grade Balabag property, on the western side of Mindanao Island in the Philippines. The property was first worked by Rio Tinto in the late 1990s. Some 300 channel and chip samples collected over a portion of a major ridge returned a weighted average of 10.97 grams gold and 258.69 grams silver. Small-scale mining is scattered throughout and on both sides of the impressive ridge. The highest-grade sample collected to date came from the face of the old Tinago workings, returning 273 grams gold and 109 grams silver.
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