GOLD – Freegold Ventures Ltd. and Western Standard Metals Ltd. Jan. 22 said they have signed an option agreement whereby Western Standard may earn a 50 percent interest in the Vinasale gold project located in the Kuskokwim Mineral Belt of Southwest Alaska. Western Standard has the option to earn a 50 percent interest in the Project by paying Freegold C$350,000 on execution and by incurring exploration expenses of US$6.5 million over three years, including US$1.5 million by Dec. 31, 2010. Western Standard will be the operator of the project until such time as the option is fulfilled and a joint venture is formed. The company said it plans an initial exploration program consisting of data compilation and verification to identify targets for follow up in 2010. The exploration program will include geophysics, geochemistry and diamond drilling. In addition to the exploration program, Western Standard will collect samples for metallurgical testing. Western Standard is targeting large, bulk minable gold deposits in its exploration program.
GOLD - Millrock Resources Inc. Jan. 22 said it staked a block of 36 claims covering 5,760 acres, or 2,331 hectares covering a pluton-hosted gold target in the Alaska Range about 120 miles, or 190 kilometers northwest of Anchorage. The property, known as the Revelation, is located about 30 miles, or 48 kilometers, west of Millrock’s Estelle property and about 3 miles, or 4.8 kilometers, northwest of the Terra gold property owned by International Tower Hill Mines. During a first pass reconnaissance program, 10 samples taken from a 600-meter-long soil anomaly returning values ranging between 95 ppb and 1,200 ppb gold. Millrock staked the claims following the purchase of maps, data and other information from consulting geologist Gerald Booth. Booth provided data that was proprietary and not in the public domain, which led the Millrock team directly to the mineralized site. The purchase agreement consists of payments of US$45,000 made over four years and issuance of 40,000 Millrock shares (provided the claims are held for those four years). In the event that an ore body is discovered, a payment of US$2million will be made to Booth upon commencement of commercial production.
ZINC - Zazu Metals Corp. Jan. 27 said metallurgical tests completed on samples from the Lik zinc deposit in Northwest Alaska indicate that a zinc recovery of 85 percent could likely be obtained with silica levels less than 5 percent through floatation circuit optimization. The metallurgical work completed by SGS Mineral Services will be included in a preliminary assessment study due to be released soon. Zazu said a typical target for currently operating zinc mines is up to 5 percent silica in a concentrate. Batch tests by SGS yielded final concentrates assaying below 5 percent silica and up to 59 percent zinc. A locked cycle test yielded 83 percent zinc recovery from zinc concentrate assaying 55 percent zinc and 6 percent silica. Zazu CEO Gil Atzmon said, “Management is very pleased with these results as they correlate extremely well with concentrate produced from existing mines with similar deposits in terms of grade, recovery and silica content. Also, the relatively low level of impurities makes the concentrate an attractive product to smelters.”
FINANCE - TintinaGold Resources Inc. Jan. 28 said it has arranged a non-brokered private placement for 12.5 million units at a price of C40 cents per unit for gross proceeds of C$5 million. Each Unit will consist of one common share and one common share purchase warrant of the company. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share of the company at a price of C65 cents per share for a period of four years from the date of the closing of the financing. Electrum Strategic Metals LLC has agreed to purchase all of the units offered under the financing. Electrum owns, directly and together with Cougar Gold LLC, which may be considered a joint actor with Electrum, an aggregate of 11,914,286 shares and 7,827,407 warrants, representing approximately 17.3 percent of the issued shares of TintinaGold. Upon completion of the financing Electrum will own a total of 24,414,286 common shares, or 30.1 percent of TintinaGold’s issued common shares, and warrants to purchase an additional 20,327,407 common shares of the company. On a partially diluted basis (assuming the exercise only of the warrants held by Electrum), Electrum's interest in TintinaGold will be increased to 44.1 percent. The company intends to use the proceeds for exploration on its properties (primarily the Colorado Creek and the Kugruk properties in Alaska) and for general working capital and other corporate purposes.
