possible junior gold targetPDAC 2008 Produces "Rock Star" Amongst Junior Gold Exploration Mining Companies
Thursday March 13, 3:43 pm ET
NEW YORK, NY--(MARKET WIRE)--Mar 13, 2008 -- To mining companies, the PDAC 2008 convention is like the Oscars are to Hollywood, only the companies exhibiting aren't there for awards. With precious metals trading at record prices, it was often standing room only on the crowded exhibit floor, but one junior gold exploration company seemed to stand out as the "rock star" of the show drawing constant attention. Consolidated Spire Ventures Ltd. (CDNX:CZS.V - News) (Other OTC:CZSVF.PK - News) stood out above the others, not because of a glamorously laid out exhibit, nor for having one of the more visible exhibit booths -- but because of a display of rocks and the story behind it.
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Cons. Spire Ventures President R. Brian Buchanan told AXcess News that he was surprised by how many people were coming up to his company's booth, though his modesty couldn't hide the fact that what was attractive was the fact that CZS had discovered a major gold play near Merritt, British Columbia, which is about a two hour drive from Vancouver.
Called the Spences Bridge Gold Belt, the property is surrounded by some of the largest open-pit copper mines in the Province. Consolidated Spire Ventures' find is the first time gold has been discovered there and what attracted so many visitors was the fact that the discovery could be mined in an open-pit fashion, which is much more economical than hard rock mining.
Buchanan said that he and the company's geologists had walked the entire stretch of the Spences Bridge Gold Belt, staking out what they thought represented the best prospects. Since filing claims on the property, other mining companies have moved in and surrounded their property with claims of their own. But Buchanan said that didn't concern him that much as they believed they had the richest claims in the area.
According to a recent press release, a portion of the property Consolidated Spire Ventures has explored through several years of drilling and trenching programs holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million ounces of recoverable gold and that it only represents about 1/2 percent of the total acreage, or 2.5 kilometers. Buchanan said that there were another 4 kilometers still to be explored, but he believed that the structure of the veining would reveal substantially greater reserves. A 43101 report is due out shortly and Buchanan said that several larger mining companies who visited CZS' booth at the PDAC 2008 convention met with executives to discuss their gold property further, though he would not give details or names, citing non-disclosure agreements that were struck.
When asked about the viability of developing the property, Buchanan noted that there were good accessible roads nearby as well as power and rail and that an experienced workforce was only 20 kilometers away in nearby Merritt, BC, making the development of an open-pit gold mine more practical.
Buchanan said that the Company had no intentions of mining the property itself, saying it was best left up to more experienced and well capitalized companies to enter into an agreement with Consolidated Spire Ventures Ltd. to mine the gold.
With gold prices topping a record high Thursday of $1001 an ounce, when CZS first started exploring the Spences Bridge Gold Belt, gold was less than $250 an ounce. "It was economical then," said Buchanan, "so you can imagine the interests now."
Consolidated Spire Ventures was just at the end of completing the sale of a $750,000 private placement that Buchanan said was plenty of capital to fund further drilling and exploration of the property this year, so even if the Board of Directors of CZS doesn't come to terms with one of the larger gold mining companies who visited their booth at PDAC 2008, chances are that with further proving up of its claims the property will only attract a wider audience of interested mining companies as the year progresses.