Silvore Fox inks agreement with Chinese

A private placement earlier this year, in which Sino Minerals Corp., formerly China Nonferrous Metals Exploration, took a 35.09% equity stake in Nova Scotia-based Silvore Fox Minerals (SFX-V), is starting to pay dividends.

Ten months on, the Canadian junior has signed a 10-year agreement with Sino Minerals’ parent company, Beijing Donia Resources, a powerful Chinese state-owned enterprise that is exploring for mineral deposits in Laos, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Congo, Zimbabwe and Canada.

The news sent Silvore Fox’s shares up 2¢ to close at 11¢.

Donia’s majority shareholder, state-owned China Nonferrous Metals Resource Geological Survey, has more than 30 projects in Africa, the Americas and Southeast Asia. It also has long-term partnerships with Chinese heavyweights Chinalco, China National Gold Group and Shandong Gold Mining Co.

Under Silvore Fox’s agreement with Donia, the two companies will work together to acquire precious and base metal properties or companies with desirable precious and base metal assets in the Americas.

“Together we have a vision of taking Silvore Fox forward internationally into potentially a very large mineral exploration company,” Harry Cabrita, Silvore Fox’s president and chief executive, said in a telephone interview. “Right now, we’re pretty focused on Ontario, Mexico and South America.”

The Beijing-based company will assist Silvore Fox on the technical aspects of developing the junior’s flagship Coxheath property, a copper-gold-molybdenum exploration-stage project in Cape Breton County, about 13 km southwest of Sydney, N.S.

Cabrita adds that Donia was looking for a partner and chose Silvore Fox. “They’re very interested in Coxheath,” he says. “We’ve drilled 77 holes and hit copper in every hole, and we have a new moly zone under development.”

He also pointed out that Coxheath is right beside tide water, has infrastructure, a labour pool, power on site, and is just 500 metres from a paved highway.

“If this was in China it would already have been a mine,” he says. “It has a lot of attributes. We’re a really good deal. They think it is a great investment.”

And with Donia as a partner, Cabrita adds, Silvore Fox can move ahead quickly.

“Donia can lay the team down on the ground and rip through it immediately,” he says. “We would be in a very fast development phase with Beijing Donia as a working partner.”

Donia will have the first option to fund Coxheath, but the agreement can be terminated by either company by giving three months’ notice.

Silvore Fox holds 100% of the mineral rights at Coxheath, where copper was first discovered in 1875.

The property has five shafts, but there has been only limited copper production. Since 1901, the property has been explored by several different companies, but financing ran out before the area was properly understood, according to a technical report on the company’s web-site.

Donia’s chairman Jingbin Wang is also chairman of Silvore Fox Minerals. In addition, Wang serves as president of the Beijing Institute of Geology of Mineral Resources, president of Sinotex Mineral Exploration Co., vice-president of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, and assistant director of the China Geology Association.