Sikaman expands exploration portfolio

Toronto-based Sikaman Gold Resources (SKG-T) has expanded its domestic exploration portfolio by optioning three base metal properties in central and eastern Canada.

In the Rouyn-Noranda region of Quebec, the company acquired 20 claims immediately west of its 50%-owned Hebecourt copper and Magusi zinc-copper deposits. The claims contain several anomalies believed to represent an extension to the fault credited with each deposit’s formation.

Before low copper prices forced its closure in 1997, Hebecourt was mined by Noranda (NOR-T) as an open-pit operation, yielding 103,000 tonnes grading 2.7% copper. The major had begun driving a decline into an underground resource of 1 million tonnes grading 2.8% but abandoned it efforts at the 137-metre level.

Magusi is likewise undeveloped, though estimates point to probable zinc resources of 778,360 tonnes grading 7.29% and 206,837 tonnes at 5.28%, and a copper resource of 1.5 million tonnes grading 3%. If these resources are ever deemed economic, they would be mined by underground methods.

To earn a 100% interest in the claims, Sikaman must pay a group of private vendors $12,000 in cash over four years, spend $300,000 on exploration over five years and issue 1 million shares at 5 cents per share.

In a similar deal, the company can earn a 65% interest in the Stirling property in Nova Scotia by spending $500,000 on exploration over five years and issuing the vendor, Falconbridge (FL-T), 1.5 million shares at 5 cents per share.

Stirling comprises 159 claims and is adjacent to the historic Mindamar polymetallic mine, where a total of 907,180 tonnes was mined in the 1930s and 1950s. The grade during those two periods was reported as being 6.4% zinc, 1.5% lead and 0.74% copper, plus 75.45 grams silver and 1.37 grams gold per tonne. Earlier this year, Sikaman acquired a half-interest in the property that hosts the Mindamar deposit, and the company believes the new property may contain comparable targets.

Meanwhile, in northeastern Ontario, the company can earn a 75% interest in Central Asia Goldfields’ (CGZ-M) Pontiac property by spending $500,000 on exploration over three years.

Pontiac comprises 88 claims near the Quebec border and has been tested by soil and geophysical surveying, as well as by limited drilling. This work outlined several promising conductors, in addition to a deep-seated zone of sodium depletion (a geochemical trait of volcanogenic massive sulphide environments) beneath a copper showing.

Drilling is scheduled to begin later in the year.

All three acquisitions have yet to be approved by regulatory bodies.