Pro-active approach attracts Placer Dome

Mineral exploration is a highly competitive business, yet the key to success may be to combine the knowledge of the competition with that of your own. If you avail yourself in some way of all the people and resources doing exploration work out there — use the rest of the world as part of your exploration arm — your odds are much better of finding something good. The 1991 budget of Placer Dome (TSE), at more than $50 million, about the same level as in 1990, reflects an ongoing commitment to further our knowledge of 1990 exploration targets, and to undertake new opportunities, especially in the international context where finding costs are lower than in North America and where metallogenic provinces may have been less explored.

Our focus has been primarily on finding gold because gold mining over the long term has shown above- average returns. Starting in 1991, we intend to seek more opportunities in copper, zinc, nickel and platinum group minerals, with the understanding that any ventures should meet our criteria of above-average profitability.

At Placer, our strategy is to do whatever it takes to find world-class deposits: we stake, we take stock positions in junior exploration companies, we conduct our own generative programs. In order to be able to judge the merits of any prospect — whether it was brought to us or found by our own people — you have to do “generative” work to understand the significance of each prospect, and also, hopefully to find what others may have missed.

As we define it, a generative program is a pro-active, systematic activity which uses all current exploration tools and the aggressive efforts of geologists to select and acquire mineral prospects. We examine prospective ground whether it is staked or vacant; if it has potential and it’s open we stake it, if it’s owned we approach owners for a joint venture. We listen to everybody, and we are willing to talk participation with anyone who has what we think is a good prospect.

Our pro-active approach includes broad-ranging studies of promising geologic provinces where the most prospective geology is. We then go over it with fresh perspectives, using government data, sampling, mapping and talking with people, especially the prospectors who know the area best.

This is the stage in which we tap into all the existing knowledge out there, looked at it from the perspective of our own ideas. For example, regional geochemical studies are not something we do frequently; but others do that, and we can eventually profit from their results.

Out of the process of looking at known data and information in a new light, Placer might find or acquire in a given metallogenic unit, prospects of interest that would merit investigation. Further work may produce a discovery which justifies drilling. The progress of activity involves three stages: ideas about where to start, surface exploration and underground evaluation, all leading, ideally, to a feasibility study.

In 1990 our emphasis was on work in the middle and advanced stages of exploration, reflecting the importance we attach to increasing our reserves. We did advanced work, such as definition drilling, with favorable results, at three important prospects: the Kerr copper- gold property in British Columbia, the Bulyanhulu gold property in Tanzania where we are joint- venturing with the government, and the Osborne property in Australia where Placer Pacific made a significant copper-gold discovery during the year.

Not to be overlooked among our programs are the substantial exploration efforts at our producing mines to define more ore and investigate unexplored mineral targets on mine property. Producers like the high- grade gold Campbell Mine and the Bald Mountain and Cortez mines on the Carlin Trend in Nevada contain high potential for adding to Placer’s mineral inventory.

Although this sounds obvious, finding new ore at an operating mine where the infrastructure already exists is a cheap and effective way of accomplishing the exploration function, and it is not always pursued.005 0000,0606 A native of Spain, Eliseo Gonzalez- Urien is vice-president exploration of Placer Dome, whose worldwide gold production has topped one million oz. each of the past two years. Eliseo Gonzalez-Urien