Noront and Freewest to Jointly Explore Key Airborn
Noront and Freewest to Jointly Explore Key Airborne Geophysical Target Located Proximal to the Eagle One Deposit in the McFaulds Lake Area, Northern Ontario
TORONTO, ONTARIO, May 14, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX News Network) --
Richard Nemis, President and CEO of Noront Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: NOT) and Mackenzie I. Watson, President and CEO of Freewest Resources Canada Inc. (TSX VENTURE: FWR) today announce that their respective companies have agreed to jointly explore a key airborne geophysical anomaly, situated in the Eagle One deposit locale in the McFaulds Lake area. The McFaulds Lake area exploration play is situated in the Sachigo greenstone belt, 300 kilometres north of Nakina in the James Bay Lowlands of northern Ontario.
Under the terms of the agreement ("FWR-NOT JV"), Freewest will contribute 68 acres (27.5 hectares) comprising a small portion of their 100%-owned property. Noront in turn, will contribute 70 acres (28.3 hectares) of their adjoining land to collectively form the joint-venture property ("the Property"). Freewest and Noront shall share exploration costs on a 50%-50% basis and will share any mineralization found on the Property on a similar basis. Freewest will act as the operator of the initial exploration program which is to be agreed upon by both parties.
The Property covers a prominent bulls eye-shaped magnetic anomaly strikingly similar to the magnetic anomaly intimately associated with the Eagle One deposit, located some seven (7) kilometres to the southwest. The magnetic anomaly on the Property is also coincident with an electromagnetic anomaly (conductor), defined in a recent airborne geophysical survey completed by Aeroquest Intl. Limited, utilizing their AeroTEM II helicopter-borne system. A map showing the location of the Property and the subject airborne geophysical anomaly (Figure 1) comprises part of this news release and is posted on the Freewest website at
www.freewest.com.
At the Eagle One deposit, Noront has encountered some exceptional grades including 5.90% nickel, 3.10% copper, 2.87 g/t platinum and 9.78 g/t palladium over 68.3 metres (NOT-07-05) as well as 6.30% nickel, 2.80% copper, 1.90 g/t platinum and 10.20 g/t palladium over 46.2 metres in drill hole NOT-07-27. Noront is currently completing an NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate with an accompanying technical report on its Eagle One deposit and is also drilling several other targets within their large land tracts (see Noront news release dated May 9, 2008).
Following the spring break-up, a deep-penetrating ground electromagnetic survey (TDEM) will be completed on the property in an effort to more closely locate diamond drilling targets. It is anticipated that the geophysical survey will be completed in June with diamond drilling following shortly thereafter.
Donald Hoy, P. Geo., Ontario, Vice President of Exploration and a Director of Freewest Resources Canada Inc is the qualified person on the Property under National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the preparation of this news release.
A thorough quality control program was implemented for the Double Eagle project which included grouping samples into batches of 35 into which was added 2 certified reference material standards, 2 field blanks comprised of sterile drill core, and a field duplicate. It can be said with confidence that all assays as reported in this Press Release have passed the strict quality control guidelines as set out by Noront's Qualified Person ("QP").
Freewest is a well-funded mineral exploration company with working capital in excess of $9 million, exploring for gold and base-metals in Eastern Canada. Corporate information can be accessed on the Internet at
www.freewest.com. Freewest's shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol FWR.
As well this press release has been completed under the supervision of Noront's senior management including Neil Novak P.Geo., a director and Vice President-Exploration and John Harvey P.Eng. Executive Vice President of Noront, being Qualified Persons under Canadian Securities guidelines.
Noront is a tier 2 junior resource company on the TSX Venture Exchange, trading symbol NOT, with 129,403,883 shares issued to date.