Silvore Fox Minerals inks strategic 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 ten-year strategic 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 22.2% or 2¢ apiece to close at 11¢ per share.

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

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, the company’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 also assist Silvore Fox on the technical aspects of developing the junior’s flagship Coxheath property, a copper-gold-moly exploration-stage project in Cape Breton County, about 13 km southwest of Sydney, Nova Scotia.

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

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

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

And with Donia as a partner, he adds, Silvore Fox can move ahead quickly. “Donia can lay the team down on the ground and rip through 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 the Coxheath property, 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 a number of different companies, but financing ran out before the area was properly understood, according to a technical report on the company’s website.  

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