Crew adds olivine to portfolio

Vancouver — Just as it is preparing to build the Nalunaq gold mine in southern Greenland, Crew Development (CRU-T) has acquired a deposit of olivine in the same region.

The deposit, known as Seqi, consists of 97% olivine, is fully exposed, and has a commercially viable grade.

Crew has held an option on the project since 1999. It intends to launch a drilling program and is seeking partners to advance the project to development.

Olivine refers to any of a group of magnesium iron silicates occurring in olive-green to grey-green masses.

Meanwhile, construction on the Nalunaq mine is under way. The first shipment of stockpiled ore, containing 23,000 oz., should set sail late in the fall, and by the first half of 2004, the mine is expected to reach full production of 350 tonnes per day. That should translate into annual gold output of 90,000 oz.

Comprising 1,080 sq. km, Nalunaq is a high-grade, narrow-vein, underground project. It is 40 km from the village of Nanortalik on the southern tip of Greenland and 6 km from tidewater. Crew acquired its stake in the project in late 1999 through a merger with Mindex, a Norwegian exploration company. The remaining 33% interest is held by NunaMinerals, which is owned by the state of Greenland.

The prospect is a gold-bearing quartz vein and calc-silicate-altered shear system that outcrops on the eastern and northern faces of Nalunaq Mountain. It was discovered in 1992 by Nunaoil while following up on regional stream-sediment and scree-sampling work that had been done in the late 1980s.

The Main zone consists of multiple quartz veins in a strongly sheared portion of calc-silicate-altered amphibolite (chlorite, epidote and carbonate). The quartz thickness ranges from 0.01 to 0.75 metre; the zone itself has a true thickness ranging from 0.15 to 1.5 metres. The individual veins pinch and swell and are locally folded or stretched out.

Gold occurs in a free state and almost exclusively in association with quartz in veins and veinlets. A high nugget effect has caused erratic grades, creating concerns about the continuity of ore zones. Surface sampling has returned some extremely high-grade values, including more than 800 grams gold per tonne across 1 metre. In addition, underground channel sampling has yielded values of up to 5,000 grams per tonne.

For the six months ended Dec. 31, 2002, Crew reported a net loss of $9.6 million (or 7 per share), compared with a net loss of $11.8 million (9 per share) in the corrsponding period of 2001. During this time, the company invested $6 million in the Nalunaq project.