LATIN AMERICA — Ourominas adds McLucas to board

Scottish mining financier William (“Willie”) McLucas has been appointed chairman of Toronto-based Ourominas Minerals (OMI0-T), in an attempt to raise exploration financing.

McLucas is currently chairman of Perseverance Corp. and Montague Gold, both of which are based in Australia. He was one of the first European entrepreneurs to raise capital for junior mining companies exploring in Indonesia during the 1980s. At the time, McLucas was the head of Waverley Asset Management, a mutual fund that had invested in the Australian-led exploration boom in Indonesia. The fund was a subsidiary of Waverley Mining Finance, through which John Felderhof, the disgraced former vice-chairman of Bre-X Minerals, first became involved in the now-notorious Busang property.

Ourominas intends to raise up to $50 million through a special warrant financing at 17cents per share.

Recently, the company entered into option agreements on two properties in the Peixoto de Azevedo area of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state.

Ourominas has 90 days in which to review the geological potential of the properties. Diamond drilling is already under way on one target, Gaucho, and initial assay results are pending. Metallurgical testing has also been conducted, with initial results indicating that gold recoveries in excess of 90% are obtainable.

Negotiations are continuing with Brazil-based Jaruana Mineracao Industria e Comercio regarding an option agreement covering 11,000 ha of its wholly owned 230,000-ha Juruena project.

Assay results from the final drill holes at Juruena did not show significant mineralization. In the meantime, Ourominas has been exploring two targets outside the option area identified by aeromagnetic survey. One of them, Clareira, consists of three pits along a 0.5- to 1-metre-wide quartz vein hosted in a moderately propylitized granite. This vein has been traced along strike for more than 500 metres and contains massive sulphides (pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena), as well as visible gold. Ourominas plans to establish a grid over the three pits and conduct ground geophysical and soil sampling surveys.