Yale signs letter of intentYALE SIGNS LETTERS OF INTENT TO EXPLORE TWO PROPERTIES IN NAMIBIA
Yale Resources Ltd. has signed two letters of intent with Helio Resource Corp., allowing the company to earn up to a 75-per-cent interest in each of Helio's Leicester and Otjimakuru properties in Namibia.
Leicester
The 60,000-hectare (600-square-kilometre) Leicester property is located approximately 350 kilometres northwest of Namibia's capital city, Windhoek. The property is crossed by a paved road and a 330-KV power line. To earn an initial 51-per-cent interest, Yale must spend $2.9-million on exploration and issue 850,000 common shares of Yale to Helio over four years. The first year exploration expenditure commitment is $300,000. Upon vesting a 51-per-cent interest, Yale has the right to increase its interest to 75-per-cent by issuing one million additional common shares to Helio and producing a bankable feasibility study within an additional three years.
The property was explored for copper mineralization by Falconbridge in the late 1960s. Falconbridge performed soil sampling over the entire 30 kilometres of the Rehderstal fault, that runs through the centre of the property, and identified two high-priority copper (plus-or-minus-gold-and-silver) targets. The Main target is highlighted as follows:
located adjacent to a major regional structure -- the 150-kilometre-long Rehderstal fault;
a "jog" in the Rehderstal fault coincides with a seven-kilometre by four-kilometre copper-in-stream sediment anomaly (2,449 samples covering 88 square kilometres), a seven-kilometre by three-kilometre magnetic anomaly and a Landsat iron-oxide anomaly;
copper mineralization is hosted by deformed granites and Damara-age sediments; and
Falconbridge drilled eight diamond drill holes, totalling 1,357 metres, in 1970, seven of which intersected copper mineralization. The best drill intersections from each of these zones -- located 7.8 kilometres apart -- were: 19.3 metres at 1.53 per cent Cu and 35 grams per tonne Ag; and 9.9 metres at 0.71 per cent Cu. Mineralization is open at depth and along strike, and gold was never assayed for.
No additional drilling has been performed since that time.
Confirmatory chip channel sampling of copper-oxide mineralization by Helio in 2003, at three zones up to eight kilometres apart within the Main target, returned four metres averaging 6.47 per cent Cu, six metres averaging 2.48 per cent Cu and 10 metres averaging 3.72 per cent Cu.
The second high-priority target is located approximately eight kilometres to the east of the Main target and is marked by a coincident copper-in-soil and a moderate airborne magnetic-radiometric anomaly that is approximately three kilometres in length. Initial grab sampling of this early-stage target by Helio returned values that ranged from 19 parts per million to 2,119 parts per million Cu and from 12 parts per billion to 798 parts per billion Au.
The Leicester property is underlain by two-billion-year-old basement rocks that are intruded by mineralized mid-Proterozoic (1.7 Ga) granitoids, having a Au-Cu-Fe-Bi-Ba-P-K geochemical signature. A number of sedimentary basins of lower-Damaran-age (700 to 550 Ma) also occur along the fault, and these also host copper mineralization. The presence of hematite alteration and local magnetite veining suggests that the mineralization may have affinities with iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits. However, it is also possible that the copper-silver mineralization tested by Falconbridge may represent "Zambian-copper-belt"-type copper mineralization.
Forthcoming exploration at Leicester will include induced polarization (IP) geophysical and geochemical surveys, followed by drilling of priority targets.
Otjimakuru
The Otjimakuru property covers 17,000 hectares (170 square kilometres) and is located approximately 150 kilometres northwest of Windhoek. To earn a 75-per-cent interest, Yale must spend $1.8-million on exploration and issue 775,000 common shares to Helio over a four-year period. The first year's work commitment is $150,000. The Otjimakuru property is an earlier-stage exploration target. The exploration model at Otjimakuru is for a skarn-hosted, sheeted-vein gold deposit similar to the greater-than-five-million ounce Navachab open pit gold mine, situated 90 kilometres to the southwest, and the Otjikoto deposit, located 110 kilometres to the northeast. Navachab was placed into production in 1989, by AngloGoldAshanti, and is Namibia's first and only gold mine. Otjikoto is an advanced exploration project with a one-million-ounce resource estimate at the prefeasibility stage that is being explored by AngloVaal (now ARM). The mine life at Navachab was recently extended to 2013.
Otjimakuru is located immediately adjacent to Helio's Vredelus property, where previous drilling of a magnetic anomaly intersected skarn-hosted gold mineralization with the following best grades:
9.53 grams per tonne gold over 11 metres;
12.85 grams per tonne gold over five metres; and
5.54 grams per tonne gold over 12.35 metres.
The area of interest is a package of fault-bounded sedimentary rocks that coincide with a four-kilometre-long by 1.5-kilometre-wide magnetic anomaly under calcrete cover. An initial IP and gochemical survey is planned in order to develop drill targets.
About Namibia
Namibia is located on the southwestern coast of Africa and has a surface area of over 824,000 square kilometres (about 90 per cent the size of British Columbia). Fieldwork is possible throughout the year as the country has at least 300 days of sunshine per year. The country is a stable, multiparty democracy with excellent infrastructure that gained independence from South Africa in 1990. The population is around 1.8 million (2002 estimate) and the official language is English. Mining is integral to the economy of Namibia, and makes up approximately 20 per cent of the gross domestic product, the main commodities produced being diamonds, copper, uranium, lead, zinc and gold. Namibia hosts world-class diamond, base-metal, gold and uranium mines. The country is attractive for exploration investment -- Anglo American has recently invested over $450-million (U.S.) in developing the Skorpion zinc mine. Other major companies active in the mining/exploration sector of Namibia include: De Beers, Kumba Resources, Anglo Gold, BHP Billiton, WMC, Teck Cominco and Anglo Vaal/ARM. Helio is one of the few junior companies actively exploring in Namibia.
The management and board of directors of Yale feel that these two properties provide the company with an exciting new opportunity to explore for large-scale copper and gold deposits.
We seek Safe Harbor.