The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Backed by Electrum and NovaGold, junior positions itself as major Alaska explorer
Since Mantra Mining Inc. emerged as the vehicle in which NovaGold Resources Inc. would spin off its noncore assets, the Vancouver B.C.-based junior has positioned itself to become a major player on the Alaska mining scene.
In 2009 Mantra acquired whole or part interest in more than 417,000 acres of mining properties in western Alaska, assembled an impressive management team and board of directors (including two Thayer Lindsley award winners) and raised C$5 million to investigate its gold and base metal properties.
In September Mantra created AsiaBaseMetals Inc.; a new exploration company focused on base metals, and changed its name to TintinaGold Resources Inc.
"The name TintinaGold better reflects the company's focus on the Tintina Gold Belt, one of the more prolific and under-explored gold-rich regions in the world. With such world-class assets as Donlin Creek [30-million-ounce gold reserve owned by NovaGold and Barrick (Gold Corp.)] and the Fort Knox Mine [400,000-ounce-a-year annual gold producer owned by Kinross (Gold Corp.)] and a host of recent new and exciting discoveries such as Livengood in Alaska and White Gold in Yukon (Territory), we believe this is one of the hottest exploration venues in the world," said TintinaGold Executive Chairman Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse.
Tapping NovaGold's resources
TintinaGold closed the deal in early March to acquire all of NovaGold's interest in 397,680 acres of early-stage exploration properties in western Alaska. The acquisition includes two gold exploration claim groups in the Kuskokwim region (Tintina gold properties and the Colorado Creek gold project) and three western Alaska base metal properties (Kugruk, Baird and Omilak).
In exchange for the properties, TintinaGold issued NovaGold 3.125 million shares of its common stock, which, at the time, represented about 7 percent of TintinaGold's issued and outstanding shares.
In addition to receiving a suite of promising properties from NovaGold, TintinaGold tapped the company's president, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, to chair its board of directors, and recruited geologist Jerry Zieg to become TintinaGold's vice president of exploration.
"Jerry Zieg brings a wealth of experience and knowledge of the precious-and base metal projects recently acquired by Mantra from NovaGold," TintinaGold President and CEO Raj Chowdhry said. "Jerry will enable Mantra to plan and conduct exploration work; especially on the Colorado Creek project a property which has many geologic similarities to the 40 million-ounce Donlin Creek gold deposit located in the upper Kuskokwim region of the Tintina Gold belt of Alaska and the Yukon."
The junior spent about C$1.6 million in 2009 on preliminary exploration of its newly acquired properties, the bulk of which was spent on a 2,547-meter drill program at the Colorado Creek property.
Focus on Colorado Creek
After closing the deal with NovaGold, TintinaGold began compiling historical exploration data in preparation for its initial drill campaign at Colorado Creek, a property that the company hopes is a sibling to Donlin Creek.
Much of the data with which Zieg worked came from Placer Dome (now a part of Barrick Gold Corp.), which investigated the property in 1997. But Zieg also had information from exploration performed by NovaGold in 2008. Using its advanced understanding of ore controls at Donlin Creek, Zieg's former employer demonstrated that the mineralization was open beyond previously known limits.
NovaGold Vice President of Strategic Development Greg Johnson told Mining News the intrusive-related mineralization at Colorado Creek has many of the key markers that led to the Donlin Creek discovery.
"When one looks at mature districts around the globe, these gold deposits are usually found in groups along a certain trend," Johnson explained. "Colorado Creek is certainly one of the ones that you would look at because of the level of gold that was produced historically, and it has these intrusives that are associated at Donlin."
After gaining an acute understanding of the 26,900-acre, or 10,890-hectare, property, Zieg put together a 2,547-meter drill program for Colorado Creek designed to test the potential for a major gold mineralized system from a multi kilometer-long area of elevated gold in soil and rock samples.
"The results show widespread gold mineralization in the sill, which is more than 100 meters thick, and helped us understand mineralization controls within it and around it. The drilling hasn't closed off the mineralization, but rather given us more confidence in our view that this is a very large gold system and we'll need more work to vector into the best part of it. We've also encountered a different higher temperature style of sulfide mineralization closer to the cripple stock, and we're eager to learn more about it," Zieg told Mining News after receiving results from the first three holes of the 12-hole program.
Hole DDH09-014 intersected 111 meters with an average grade of 0.64 grams per metric ton gold, and includes 24 meters averaging 1.15 g/t gold and 2.3 meters averaging 7.28 g/t gold.
In addition to drilling TintinaGold also carried out a reconnaissance soil sampling program across the property. The junior will use the information from this year's exploration to establish targets for a more extensive drill campaign in 2010.
Recon at other properties
Zieg said TintinaGold did not do any work on the intrusive-related Tintina gold properties this year. The 93,280-acre properties acquired from NovaGold are divided into 5 claim blocks scattered along about a 100-kilometer, or 60-mile, stretch of the Kuskokwim Gold Belt south-southwest of Donlin Creek.
The junior did complete reconnaissance work on the base metal projects it picked up from NovaGold. The company is particularly interested in the Kugruk prospect, located about 70 miles north of Nome.
"At Kugruk, we completed about 15 line-kilometers of IP/resistivity and gravity work focused on the better anomalies from the 2006 airborne EM and magnetic survey. Our initial results look very encouraging," Zieg told Mining News.
The 177,280-acre Kuguruk property hosts copper-iron scarns, silver-lead-zinc prospects and placer gold rich drainages. The juxtaposition of these various mineral systems leads the explorer to believe that a large-scale porphyry copper or iron oxide-copper-gold deposit could be hidden below the loess that covers the prospect.
Zieg said geologists also spent a few days collecting rock and soil samples at the Baird Mountains polymetallic and the Omalik high-grade silver-lead-zinc properties. Both base metal prospects are located in Northwest Alaska
Golden Lynx properties
In early May, TintinaGold acquired 55 percent interest in the Golden Lynx properties, a group of five properties that lie along the same trend as Colorado Creek, Donlin Creek and the Tintina properties. In exchange for the gold prospects, the junior agreed to issue 4.2 million TintinaGold shares to Cougar Gold LLC, a Denver-based subsidiary of privately held global mining group Electrum Ltd., for Cougar Gold's 55 percent joint venture interest in the 20,040 acres of gold properties situated about 240 kilometers, or 150 miles south-southwest of Donlin.
In 2007, Gold Crest Mines Inc., 45 percent partner in Golden Lynx, drilled 945 meters at Kisa, the northernmost claim block. All six drill holes are reported to have encountered broad zones of gold mineralization. According to the Idaho-based junior, assay intervals containing up to 8.6 grams per metric ton of gold suggest the possibility of higher-grade zones within the intrusive-breccia complex.
Electrum, in 2008, followed up on the junior's discoveries. Sources tell Mining News that the private firm spent about US$1.5 million in 2008 with a primary focus on the Kisa property.
TintinaGold has completed initial surveys of the five claim blocks in anticipation of future exploration.
Powerful allies
TintinaGold has raised C$5 million and gained a powerful ally in two deals that closed in May. The money was raised through a private placement that closed May 20.
Electrum Strategic Minerals bought 7.71 million units of the 14.47 million units offered by TintinaGold. Combined with Cougar Gold's 4.2 million TintinaGold shares, the affiliates own a 17.4 percent interest in the junior. If Electrum exercises its warrants, the combined stake in TintinaGold would climb to about 25.7 percent.
Electrum also owns 51.92 million shares, or nearly 30 percent, of NovaGold Resources Inc.
Electrum President Larry Buchanan took a seat on TintinaGold's board of directors. Buchanan is the 2006 recipient of the Thayer Lindsley award for the discovery of the San Cristobal Mine located in the Potosi Mining district of Bolivia.
"The company will be very fortunate to have two Thayer Lindsley award winners on the board of the company. Mr. Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of TintinaGold, won the award in 2009," Chowdhry said.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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