Alhambra’s “Vasilkovskoe East” Project Area (500 square kilometers) is located in the western part of its Uzboy Gold Project; where the geology of the prospect itself is dominated by Early-Middle Ordovician volcano-sediment sequences intruded by several relatively big granite and granodiorite intrusions of Early Silurian (or older) age and some small Middle - Late Devonian granite porphyry stocks.
Situated only 22 kilometers west of Alhambra’s “Vasilkovskoe East” (a mere geologic blink of the eye) is Glencore’s world class Vasilkovskoe deposit, hosting reported resources of roughly 12.6 million ounces of gold; (a typical intrusion related Orogenic style deposit).
Glencore’s massive Vasilkovskoe deposit consists of zones of vein, veinlet and disseminated gold mineralization that shows a strong correlation to the contacts of Ordovician-Silurian granodiorite intrusions; and the distribution of these intrusions as well as the interpreted main mineralized corridor is controlled by a Northwest striking deep-seated tectonic structure; - the extension of this structure and an interpreted mineralized corridor to the east toward “Vasilkovskoe East” is confirmed by the regional magnetic survey data, - with the same type intrusions that host the Vasilkovskoe gold deposit occurring in “Vasilkovskoe East” (producing similar style hornfels and hydrothermal alterations as in Glencore’s Vasilkovskoe gold deposit).
This is one of Alhambra’s high potential, early stage exploration projects and in all, twelve known zones of gold mineralization occur in “Vasilkovskoe East”, - but there is very little information concerning their geological settings, size or gold concentrations.
More specifically, the objective of Alhambra’s 2010 exploration program at “Vasilkovskoe East” was to check for Vasilkovskoe style mineralization in the western and southern (Ivanovka) parts of the project area and for Uzboy style mineralization in its central (Akshasor) part. This included geological traverses, plus soil and rock-chip sampling.
In the Western part of this project area, soil sampling was conducted along 4 North-South orientated lines from 5 to 7 kilometers in length and situated 500 m apart (with a total of 225 soil samples taken). In the Akshasor area, 9 NW orientated soil sampling lines, 1,000 to 1,650 m long and 200 m apart, were completed, and a total of 336 samples were taken. Meanwhile, in the Ivanovka area, 30 kilometers of geological traverses covering an area of 12.7 square kilometers resulted in 54 rock chip samples being taken. On a positive note, the geological setting is characterized by interesting lithology and hydrothermal alterations, which looks favorable for gold mineralization.
As just noted, -
the nearby world class Vasilkovskoe deposit (with roughly 12.6 million ounces of gold) is currently being mined by the Vasilkovskoe Gold Company, owned by Glencore International AG (via Kazzinc).
Vasilkovskoye Gold is a large scale open-pit gold mine commissioned in 2010 and expected to produce gold initially at a rate of some 450,000 ounces per annum, with annual production eventually rising to 700,000 ounces. In a related move, on May 28th, Kazzinc launched a $700 million processing plant for its gold operations in northern Kazakhstan.
So, who are these guys? The world's biggest commodity trader!
The company was originally founded by controversial trader Marc Rich in 1974 (who was wanted by the FBI for tax evasion and trading with Iran prior to being pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in the Oval Office). In its modern form, Glencore International AG was incorporated in Switzerland under Swiss law on June 12, 1987, and its headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland.
This secretive company is run by 485 partners (all employees) who own shares in Glencore Holding and LTE. As of March 31, 2010, Glencore’s total assets amounted to $67.5 billion; and measured by revenues, Glencore was one of the world’s largest privately held companies.
As of March 31, 2010, Glencore employed 2,709 people worldwide, with the key decision making group being the senior management team of 12 people, comprising the Chairman, the Chief Executive Officer and the department heads.
A global network of more than 50 subsidiary offices located in over 40 countries throughout Europe, North, Central and South America, the CIS, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East provides Glencore with significant worldwide sourcing and distribution capabilities; and Glencore is believed to be the world’s largest physical supplier of the majority of the metals and minerals which it markets.
Glencore’s Metals and Minerals business group is composed of three departments: Alumina/Aluminum, Zinc/Copper/Lead and Ferroalloys/Nickel/Cobalt (including noble metals/alloys and bulk ores, which include iron, manganese and chrome ore). Naturally, the activities of Glencore’s Metals and Minerals business group are supported by strategic investments in industrial assets such as mining, smelting, refining and processing operations.
However, gold is NOT one of Glencore’s primary businesses.
At present, the secretive Switzerland-based company’s gold assets are owned through Kazzinc; and Kazzinc (currently) owns 100 percent of Vasilkovskoe and 48 percent of the Novoshirokinskoe mine in Russia.
In June, 2010, Glencore began considering putting its gold mines on the market to ‘monetize’ the group’s gold assets (having, in February, 2010, bought the 60 percent stake it didn’t already own in Vasilkovskoe Gold). Then, in August, 2010, Glencore began studying an initial public offering of its Kazzinc unit’s gold assets sometime in 2011.
Today, December 26th, 2010, Glencore announced that it would spin off its gold assets, - which could be worth roughly $5billion based on listed gold group valuations.
The key point (and primary takeaway in all this) is that Alhambra’s “Vasilkovskoe East” Project Area (500 square kilometers) may someday be of considerable investment merit to its patient investors.